Mike: 00:07

Welcome to Speak the Truth, a podcast devoted to giving biblical truth for educating, equipping, and encouraging the individual and local church in counseling and discipleship.

Mike: 00:18

Hello. Hello. Hello. We are back in this mobile studio. We are still at the Salem Heights made to minister conference twenty twenty five.

Mike: 00:27

Our ultimate treasure, the transformative power of knowing Christ. And we're on the last day, and I'm joined with someone who has been in the biblical counseling world for a long time, but this is the first time he's been on speak the truth. I've got Jason Kovacs. Brother, how are doing? I'm doing great.

Mike: 00:43

Good to see you, man.

Jason: 00:44

Great to be on.

Mike: 00:45

Yeah. Yeah. Many of you are familiar with Jason. Probably some of our listeners have gone through his level one certification training class, or maybe you're currently going through level two. I don't know.

Mike: 00:54

Any rate, we're gonna focus primarily on just the foundational truths for biblical counseling, union with Christ, the implications for counseling. But before we jump into that, Jason, can you share us if some of our listeners may not know you or your ministry, can you share a little bit of who you are, your ministry, and anything else you'd like to share? Maybe the most interesting fact about you that maybe no one knows that will be exclusive for our listeners.

Jason: 01:15

Oh, man. That's a lot of pressure. An exclusive fact. I have to think about that. Yeah.

Jason: 01:21

I I direct a ministry called the Gospel Care Collective. Just an incredible joy getting to do that. So we do counseling. So we provide online counseling for folks. We have a team of counselors located across The United States and Canada.

Jason: 01:35

So we're also based in Canada as well. And then we do training. We're a training center for ABC. So we do level one, level two. And then we work with churches helping them develop a culture of care.

Jason: 01:47

Think through how do they establish counseling ministries. And we do intensives and sabbatical coaching.

Mike: 01:54

Okay, great. I will definitely put all of that information in the show notes because Jason was saying, there's a lot of momentum in the ministry in Canada. So there's some partnerships there. And I'll also try to put some of those because our most at least demographically, our most listened to is obviously Americans. But our second is Canada.

Mike: 02:13

No. Yes. Canada, we see you. Alright, aye. I see.

Mike: 02:16

Yeah. I see. We'll also link some Canada information, contacts. I think we got Rick Walton over there. Correct?

Jason: 02:22

Yep.

Mike: 02:22

Yeah. Yep. Yeah. So I'll definitely put that stuff in the show notes. As far as jumping into union with Christ, I don't know if you had time to think of a interesting fact, an exclusive fact about you that will be exclusive for our Speak the Truth listeners.

Jason: 02:36

Yeah. This last year, I learned that I have a relative who came over on the Mayflower.

Mike: 02:43

That's very interesting.

Jason: 02:44

Yeah. I think so. I before that, I did not know I had any relatives that were American.

Mike: 02:52

I So, like, are you Hungarian or what what's the

Jason: 02:56

Yeah. On my dad's side, I'm Hungarian and I knew about that. And then on my mom's side, I'm Canadian and British, Irish, Scottish. I knew all that. Yeah.

Jason: 03:05

And that's all I thought my family history was. And I was I've been living in The US now for

Mike: 03:10

Did you find that out through ancestry.com? Yeah. Ancestry.com. And I need to do that.

Jason: 03:15

Oh, man.

Mike: 03:16

I need to do that.

Jason: 03:17

Yeah. I went deep into the rabbit hole.

Mike: 03:19

How deep this tree goes? It's rooted. Oh, yeah. So That's awesome. That's awesome.

Mike: 03:25

Alright. Thank you for sharing that exclusive interesting fact about yourself for our Speak the Truth listeners. So as we've been talking about in this miniseries at the Made to Minister Conference, our ultimate treasure is Christ and, you know, how basically our suffering really does inform what we believe. It it reveals the extent of our relationship with Christ. It reveals a lot to us when we're going through these things, which obviously the goal of those things is where Christ becomes our ultimate treasure.

Mike: 03:53

And so with your workshop, Jason, Union with Christ, the implications for counseling, if you could just give us a summary of the overall sort of goal of the lesson, and then we can maybe talk a little bit of how we can encourage those, maybe some of our counselors who are listening, who are maybe thinking of some specific cases that they have, where they're thinking through these things that we could encourage them in that. But just a quick summary on your lesson.

Jason: 04:15

Yeah. You union with Christ for me personally over the years, I can't remember how many years ago, it became a doctrine that really was transformative for me. It's one of those doctrines that if you kind of look back, it was very neglected. And interestingly, like, currently, there's more books being written on it. There's a great new book by Kyle Worley that just came out on Union with Christ.

Mike: 04:44

So You're gonna fill my show notes, man.

Jason: 04:46

It's alright. Let's do it. There's this resurgence because historically, Union with Christ is such as an essential doctrine in terms of understanding the gospel. It's it's at the heart of the gospel that we don't just have the benefits of Christ, but we have Christ himself. And and I think so the workshop, the goal really is to hopefully introduce or remind people of the wonder of the reality of being united to Jesus.

Mike: 05:19

Yeah, that's really good because just in terms of the description for the teaching and to your point a moment ago, it's this deeper understanding of how this doctrine shapes or views just our human identity, the reality of sin, the reality of our salvation, and how those particular pieces, going back to your point a moment ago, those are the implications of our union with Christ. And like to your point, I'm thinking specifically of the Gospel of John where Jesus is explicitly, unequivocally clear about the reality of I and the father are one, and you will be in me. There is this very much this union with Christ that we take on. I think Pete even mentioned in the first general session last night in one of his points just the reality of the imputation. What's being imputed to us.

Mike: 06:05

And that is, Amanda, that's the reality. It's a new identity. It's it's a removal of the power of sin in our lives. It obviously still has a presence of sin in there. But then we also talked a little bit about in previous podcasts yesterday, because that's what all I did yesterday was doing some podcasts.

Mike: 06:21

But the implications of what you're saying, man, that's huge. And so how do you find that sort of working in the counseling room when people are struggling and coming in and going to that point of they're coming in with a circumstance, chronic pain, or maybe trauma, whatever it is. But they're coming in and at least one of our our jobs, hoping what we're trying to do is bring that level of care to them theologically to help them. Now we're not sitting there lecturing them, but we're hoping to turn them to Christ in in ways that they haven't really considered before.

Jason: 06:53

Yeah. Yeah. No. I think there's so many implications for counseling. I think one is you read Paul's letters and just how many times Paul speaks to the reality of Christ in us and us in Christ.

Jason: 07:06

He just repeats it over and over again. And so you see biblically that that Christ is so near to us. Augustine says it this way. He says, you, oh lord, are nearer to me than I am to myself. I love that.

Jason: 07:20

It's it's we're so united to Jesus. So by virtue of that, we when he died, we died. When he was raised, we were raised. Ephesians says, we're seated with him in the heavenly place.

Mike: 07:34

It's like you're like and we think about it like, no, bro. I'm actually sitting right here right now, so I don't know how to reconcile that.

Jason: 07:39

Exactly. Exactly. And I think that's why we've neglected this doctrine because it introduces us to things that, like, blow our minds. Like, how in the world are you and I seated with Jesus in the heavenly places right now, as Ephesians says, but we're seated sitting in Salem, Oregon at the same time. And I think that's the the mystery of union with Christ.

Jason: 08:01

And the wonder of it is is that he's so near that and that it'll take us eternity to fully reconcile that and understand it. But I think what that does for us in our counseling and with people that we're sitting with is that we can help them to see that they're not alone. That they really have everything that their hearts long for and and more, you know, and and will never exhaust the riches Yeah. Of what that means. And I think that's huge.

Jason: 08:32

I think, like, it's not Jesus is in heaven throwing down help when we ask. Yeah. It's he's right here. He's present. I think of it in this way.

Jason: 08:44

He's present. He's working and he's speaking personally

Mike: 08:49

to us. Yeah. That's really good. That's what I like about grammar, the preposition and it literally, like, the relationship too. Like, it's he's there with us.

Mike: 08:58

And but I think the hard part, right, about what we're saying, because we know that to be true. We believe that to be true. But obviously sometimes in the counseling room it certainly doesn't feel that way.

Jason: 09:09

Yeah, yeah. And the other implication for counseling, I'll talk about this in our workshop today, is for the counselor. I go into a counseling session believing that I'm going into this session in union with Jesus. So what it means is that my ministry to the person I'm counseling isn't my ministry. It's Jesus' ministry.

Jason: 09:30

He's doing the work. He's speaking the truth.

Mike: 09:33

I'm like a gospel centered advocate.

Jason: 09:37

Paul talks about it in second Corinthians five that we are his ambassador.

Mike: 09:40

Yeah.

Jason: 09:41

That that God is making his appeal through us. Yeah. And and that for me changes everything because I'm sitting with somebody and there's oftentimes I've been counseling a long time now and there's still times where I'm like, don't know what to say. Yeah. Or what to do.

Jason: 09:57

But he does. And he's not far off kind of gonna have to say, hey, send some wisdom here. It's no, Jesus, you're present. You were present in this person's life working even before I showed up doing things that I may never even know. And so that for me, I think has enabled me to continue to persevere with people, to have hope for people.

Jason: 10:22

Because it's not up to me to fix them. It's not up to me to have the right words. Jesus is present in their life working and speaking and ministering. And I just get to join in. Yeah.

Jason: 10:33

I get to participate in his ministry to this person. That they may not feel that way. I don't always I'm not always aware of it. There's honestly sometimes in counseling sessions where it's it hits me in the middle of a session and I can feel my whole body just relax. Oh, god, you're here.

Jason: 10:54

Jesus, you're here. Yeah. You're working.

Mike: 10:56

There is that low level angst of to your point, really trying to figure out what to do. What am I gonna say? What's the what's really going on with this person? Am I gonna be able to give them something tangible today? And, you know, all of those thoughts that ensue help.

Jason: 11:08

We wanna help. Yeah. We want to we wanna love them. We wanna carry their burden. But very subtly, I can take that on and realize that I'm bearing more responsibility for that than I need to.

Jason: 11:20

And it's like the spirit reminds me, by the my job, I carry it. We carry it with him. But his yoke is easy. His burden is light. He says, take take take my yoke.

Jason: 11:34

It's his yoke. I think of that often. Right?

Mike: 11:37

It's like when you to your point, though, you think of that often, like, even in the middle of a session when somebody's coming and they are burdened, they're feeling heavy, nothing feels Yeah. And life is bench pressing them. Yeah. How do we, to your point and just everything, the implications of that union with Christ, just how do you begin to have that conversation with them? Because I think that's that's part of it, right?

Mike: 12:00

It's part of that counseling process and part of the methodology of we're listening to their story, we're hearing their experience, and then we're always trying to point them back to Jesus. But it's hard for us to do that until we know their story more. So how do you that give and take in the sessions of getting to hear their stories and hear the way that their perspective and how they're experiencing things so that you can begin to point them to that union with Christ? Understanding in its complexity their identity, sin, salvation, and that framework of who they are, even though they don't feel that in the moment because life has been pressing them. How do you the dynamic of that conversation, like, do you, like, work through that?

Jason: 12:39

Yeah. I think being able to affirm that their story and whatever they're dealing with, the suffering, the sin is crushing them. It is heavy. It is impossible. And then because of union with Christ, because of Christ not just his death, but his perfect life in our place, his suffering for us in his life and his death, there's a beautiful connection there that we can offer to people to say, you're being crushed by these things.

Jason: 13:11

But here's the gospel is that Jesus was actually crushed for you. So you don't have to be crushed. Jesus took all of that on himself. Your sin, your suffering, everything. He lived the life that you and I try over and over to live and fail over and over again and again.

Jason: 13:33

And he lived perfectly with perfect faith, pretty perfectly suffered. He went through temptation just like we do, and he did all that in our place. And all of that was credited and imputed to us So that he was crushed so that we don't have to be. And I think that's that connection.

Mike: 13:55

Yeah. No, that's good. And as you were sharing that, man, I was thinking about Romans six, right? That's it's kind of like what we go to when we're baptized with people dead with Christ, buried with Christ at baptism, raised to walk in newness of life, ceremonial usage of Romans six. But to your point, that's really what's happening here.

Mike: 14:11

So I'm I'm speaking, specifically of Romans chapter six verses four, five, and six. We were buried therefore with him by baptism into his death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father, there's that union, we too might walk in newness of life. That's the hope that we have. That's the that's the union that we have that we're trying to encourage them. And even though they may not feel like it in the moment, but this is what we can point them to.

Mike: 14:36

And then he says, verse five, for if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like this like his. Excuse me. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing. Mhmm. So there's purpose in the crushing.

Mike: 14:52

Like, he he was crushed for us so that we don't have to be ultimately. Right. But there is this sort of temporal reality of crushing. Yeah. Because we we live in a broken world, and sometimes it falls on us very heavily, whether it's self inflicted or it's coming to us by nature of someone else inflicting or imposing or projecting on us where we become impacted.

Mike: 15:17

But I think that's the weight of that when we read this of just we are dying a slow death. Yeah. Yeah. But that newness of life we have today that and that's where it like, you were mentioning Corinthians, and I'm thinking about the imperishable for the perishable from the perishable. And so there is that and it it's heavy to think about, and it's hard like, people are like, how can I even think about that when they're so nearsighted in their struggle?

Mike: 15:41

I don't say that out of judgment. I just say that, out of that's that's just where they are. And so to your point of being able to meet them in that place and talk about that and then trying to just reorient that to this thought process. Yeah. That's where the work is.

Jason: 15:57

I think you bring up a really good point. It's yeah. The ultimately, we're not crushed because Jesus was crushed for us or in our place. But also what you said is so important is that our suffering now actually has meaning and purpose. That's a really hard one for us to comprehend.

Jason: 16:16

It has purpose, but we also have God's presence with us in Christ. Because of union with Christ, he's near to us in our suffering, and he's intimately acquainted with our suffering. He's suffered, and we suffer with him, and he suffers with us. And it's this beautiful sharing and partnership that I think transforms the hardest things in our life. Doesn't make them easier necessarily, but I think one of the hardest things in suffering is the loneliness.

Jason: 16:49

Yeah. And what what we have in Christ is we're not we're not alone in our suffering. And we forget that, and we need to be reminded of that. And that's why

Mike: 16:58

I think that's to your point, Jess. I think that's one of the sweetest realities of that union with Christ because it you were essentially quoting Isaiah 53. Right? He was well acquainted with grief. He was very acquainted with feeling isolated and shunned and shamed and all of these things that we feel.

Mike: 17:18

And Jesus felt that honestly far more than we ever will because he experienced it with a level of innocence we never had.

Jason: 17:26

Right. Yeah.

Mike: 17:27

Or ever have until glory. Yeah. And, and I think that's the hard part sometimes of working with counselees that are experiencing life and struggles and trials and suffering. It's just hard for them because it seems and feels oftentimes so ethereal because he's not physically present. And they and I think that's the union that part of union Christ where it's just like he's and I forgot what you were quoting earlier, essentially I think it was August.

Mike: 17:54

But the reality is, in the same way that I draw a breath in my lungs, he's more intimately connected with me than the very breath that I'm drawing in my lungs or the blood that's beating in my heart. It's just but it just doesn't feel that way for people in the world. It almost becomes I'm trying to convince and persuade them that this is actually your reality.

Jason: 18:16

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's where God has given us the body of Christ. That we, in a mysterious wonderful way, we represent Yeah. The presence of Jesus to each other.

Jason: 18:28

So our arms are his arms. Our presence across the table from each other is his presence to us. And so he gives us these helps that that we don't put our hope in each other, but through each other as a means of grace, we experience Jesus in his presence. He gives us, you know, his word. He gives us the Lord's Supper.

Jason: 18:52

He gives us baptism as these means of help and grace to know that there's this union of the physical and spiritual. Yeah. Which is again one of those hard things for us to comprehend. We think either one or the other like we're all physical or we're all spiritual, but God has made us embodied.

Mike: 19:12

Yeah. And I think that's the because obviously the one of the other lessons that you're getting into is trauma informed care. And I think that's the interesting dynamic when we're talking about trauma, because all of it's the result of the fall in the same way that the means of grace, those symbols that demonstrate to us the suffering that he endured. But like Peter tells us, not only do we share in his sufferings, but we share in his glory. And that's another part of that union that unfortunately, we won't we don't get to experience it.

Mike: 19:41

We don't get to experience it in the fullness in the sense that it's not very much going to feel ever probably, where it's so overpowering than the suffering that we experience. And so sometimes the power of the suffering and our response to it, internal response to it, it becomes very difficult for us to really process that reality with Christ. But but I also think too that it obviously I'm coming to and I'm thinking of cases that I've had in men and women that I've sat with, and some men specifically, man, where they really struggled with this, whether it was chronic pain. And the idea of talking about Christ and being in union with Christ and sharing in his sufferings, it was like, at first, didn't want to hear that. And so like, these symbols were felt more hurtful to him than they were symbols of hope.

Mike: 20:27

But over time and just walking with him through these things and walking through scripture and helping him understand these implications that you're gonna be teaching on is so helpful because it is true, man, that there's something about we know this, obviously with trauma and other things that there's an association of something. So like I can look at an object and my thoughts are gonna think about something and then all of a sudden I emotionally could go back to that place and how I felt and it could change my mood. It can change what has an impact on me. And I think that's the beautiful reality of that union with crisis that there's these redeeming symbols in our lives that we can go to that actually give us purpose and meaning, so that it redeems the suffering and it redeems the things that we're going through. It just doesn't feel that way in the moment.

Mike: 21:09

And I think that's why discipline is the chosen language in scripture and that adoption, that's adoption language is that it's the discipline, it's parental. It's father to son. And then Christ is like, yeah, my brothers and sisters, I get it. Like, I was obedient to the father in a way that you never will. I carry that for you.

Mike: 21:30

So the version that you have that you're going through, I know that so much so that I'm intimately involved in your suffering. And I think as you were mentioning earlier, I think that's what Paul was trying to extrapolate, what he was trying to communicate within these letters is just it's something that is it's probably one of the most fascinating realities of our life on earth and tasting and understanding salvation, and yet it's not in its full. So it's like we still have this longing for it, but it should produce a hope in us. Any final thoughts, Jason, as we wrap up and get going here?

Jason: 22:03

Yeah. No. I think everything you're saying gets to the heart of it. I think, yeah, Paul gives us this new perspective that I think really radically transforms Not on justification.

Mike: 22:17

I couldn't help myself. I'm sorry.

Jason: 22:19

Yeah. On on on suffering, we we like to think, man, I want Jesus without the pain. Yeah. And and that's this over realized sort of eschatology. This that we want the already.

Jason: 22:32

Yeah. But we live in the not yet.

Mike: 22:34

I shun the not yet. Yeah.

Jason: 22:35

We want I'm gonna be speaking on Philippians three ten. Paul's saying, I wanna know Jesus and the power of his resurrection. Yeah. And I'm like, yes. And then he says, and share in the fellowship of his sufferings.

Jason: 22:48

Oh. And be conformed to him in his death. Let's go back to the first part. Yeah. Yeah.

Jason: 22:53

I like that first half. And but Paul gives us this picture and just continues to just teach us and help us understand that that our suffering really does have meaning and purpose. And it's also temporary. Yeah. It's also it's not the way it's supposed to be, and God is restoring all things, trauma, suffering, sin.

Jason: 23:18

All of that has an end date. Yeah. And I and I think that's important for us to remember. Yeah. That we're headed in glory.

Mike: 23:27

It's the already not yet. It's expiring and will expire. Yeah. It's expiring in us, but unfortunately, we feel it in real time as it's expiring, but there will be a day when it has fully expired. And as Revelation talks about that, there'll be no more crying, no more.

Mike: 23:42

We will experience life, we will experience something in our souls that we honestly can't even begin to fathom. And that's where the hope is. Jason, man, thank you, brother, for joining us. I hope to have you on a few more times this year as things develop. Appreciate it.

Mike: 23:58

For those of you listening out there, if there's anything topically you'd like us to talk about more in 2025, please feel free to reach out. The email address topics that speak the truth dot org. We look forward to hearing from you. Thanks for listening. We'll see you guys next time.