The Dr. Jeff Show - Identity, Sexuality, & Our Identity In Christ (Transcript)
Identity, Sexuality, & Our Identity In Christ — Rob Jackson
Rob Jackson: [00:00:00] It feels to me like we have copied and pasted psychology over theology and we're more interested in the. Broken person and the sinful person.
Dr. Jeff: Hey everyone. Welcome to the Dr. Jeff Show podcast. It's available wherever you get podcasts. If you like the show, please take a moment to review it on your favorite platform three times as many people are watching the show or listening to it this year, as opposed to last year because people like you helped spread the word.
Thank you for doing that. This is the show where I interview prominent thought leaders from various fields of influence to show how our worldview changes everything. My guest today is Rob Jackson. He's a licensed counselor with focus on the family's counseling services. And he specializes in issues related to sexuality, marriage, and parenting.
In addition to being a counselor, Rob speaks at [00:01:00] churches and national conferences on topics such as Christian Spiritual formation, marriage, family ministry, addiction and recovery, pornography, pastoral care. He's earned degrees in music and psychology from Union University, and completed a Master's degree of Science and Clinical Psychology at Mississippi State.
Please. Welcome Rob Jackson to the show. Rob Jackson. Welcome to the Dr. Jeff Show podcast.
Rob Jackson: It's fantastic to be here. Dr. Jeff. Thank you.
Dr. Jeff: We have had a number of people from the counseling world. Speak to our audience of the Dr. Jeff Show podcast. And people who are watching or listening right now, parents, grandparents, young adults, we struggle with these questions of identity.
Who am I? Yeah. I was just, before the show began, I was mentioning that I was just speaking at a school, hundreds and hundreds of young people there. And I said, look, you know, we, we all say that I don't need to seek the truth. I just need to speak my [00:02:00] truth. How's that working out for us?
Rob Jackson: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Jeff: We have higher levels of self derogatory statements.
You know, I don't feel that I'm any good at all than we've ever had. We have higher levels of anxiety, higher levels of aimlessness, 75% of young adults saying they don't have a sense of purpose that gives meaning to their lives.
Rob Jackson: Right
Dr. Jeff: that we, that we somehow believe as a culture that finding your identity within you, like it's some score that's in there that if I believing, if I believe in myself, that that's somehow is going to give me meaning in the world.
And you've got a devastated generation.
Rob Jackson: And devastated families.
Dr. Jeff: Mm.
Rob Jackson: It's hurting everybody.
Dr. Jeff: Mm. Well we, we get a chance to talk about that a little bit and I think, we'll, we'll probably target very specifically talking about identity, [00:03:00] having, having your identity in Christ, but we need, there is a obstacle that we need to face in our culture, and that is that people.
Put their identity primarily in their sexuality and their own feelings of sexual desire or their own sense that they fit some cultural category based on their sexuality seems to be maybe the biggest barrier that we face right now.
Rob Jackson: I agree. And you know, I was thinking back, I got into the field of helping predominantly Christian men out of pornography addiction 30 years ago.
Dr. Jeff: Hmm.
Rob Jackson: 30 years ago this spring, and I've seen a lot of things happen, but I don't think I realized that identity was gonna become like the core issue of this movement. I don't think I understood that we were gonna get to a point to where someone said, my sexual feelings, [00:04:00] you know, equal who I am. And that seems to be truer of.
A younger generation, you know? And when I speak of the difference in our generations, I'd like to lead by saying I'm sympathetic to people of all ages, and I don't want to use age cohorts in any kind of discrimin discriminatory or prejudicial manner. And if our younger generations are suffering well, I think we are having to look at ourselves as the older generation in terms of what have we left them with.
So I'm very concerned, but I do believe to your point, that Gen Z and the, the younger generations are more focused on my identity is in my sexual feelings.
Dr. Jeff: Yeah. I'd like to spend most of our show talking about the path to healing, but I really feel like we, we need to dig into that a little bit more. How did we get to the place [00:05:00] where it wasn't just, I.
Well, like when I was a kid, I, you know, I liked girls. I wanted to, you know, I, I would've said, I, I, like, I want to have sex. I like sex, I want, but it wasn't, it wasn't like I am a certain kind of person based on those feelings. Right. It was a very different sort of thing. It was unregenerate, you know, and I, I know that I talked openly about this and had to.
To re repent of this, but it's different now. And I'd love for you to describe the difference in how we got there.
Rob Jackson: Yeah. I think if we back up even to perhaps the 1950s, there was a sense of I wanna be happy.
Dr. Jeff: Hmm.
Rob Jackson: Now that's not uncommon, but I think that generation really focused on being happy. And then I think that we've moved to a point to where most.[00:06:00]
People are saying, you know what? I'm not happy. My circumstances are not happening very well. I'm not happy with my circumstances. In fact, when I consider my circumstances and I consider what's happened to me and how I feel about what's happened to me, I really, I really think I'm just broken.
Dr. Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Rob Jackson: I think I'm a broken person, so I had to contrast happy versus healthy.
I wanted to be happy. Now I'm in a place to where she was. I don't think I'm very healthy. And what we've missed, Dr. Jeff, in both of those is a consideration the Bible brings back, which talks about our holiness.
Dr. Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Rob Jackson: The holiness that we have in Christ because of what Christ has done for the redeemed person.
And I don't know that we are even prone to thinking these days. Christ and His Holiness [00:07:00] being ours, we're we're, if anything, it feels to me like we have copied and pasted psychology over theology and we're more interested in the broken person than the sinful person.
Dr. Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Rob Jackson: Which we all are, we're all sinful, and I'm wanting to help people think through.
If we see the kindness of God and how he will lead us to repentance, if we repent in His grace, there's gonna be less to recover from.
Dr. Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Rob Jackson: And we will also have a life that is moving away from what is breaking us, what is breaking us down. And when bad things happen that do break us from time to time, My identity is not going to be broken Hmm. My identity is gonna be unchanged. I am still a child of God through Jesus [00:08:00] Christ.
Dr. Jeff: There are so many things I wanna process here. Rob, it, it just occurs to me, first of all, that you know, we do, we do have a generation that is maybe more transparent about what they're going through than in the past.
Appreciate that transparency is not the same thing. As what you're talking about that is not the same thing as repentance.
Rob Jackson: No, no. There's no substitute for repentance. You know, there, uh, there's none. And so I talk about how we have three layers of sin to deal with. The first two are not our fault, if you will.
The first is the original sin that your audience is gonna be aware of.
Dr. Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Rob Jackson: The fall of humanity. The second would be the sins others commit against us. And I wanna highlight, typically, it's okay for Christians to talk about how we have sinned, but it hasn't been okay to talk about how others [00:09:00] have sinned against us.
Dr. Jeff: Mm-hmm. '
Rob Jackson: cause then we get charged with not forgiving others. I want you to think with me about the developmental stuff. We're born in sin. We're born in original sin, and then we grow up and we're very vulnerable and very dependent in these earliest years. And life happens and people do sin against us.
Sometimes it's even on purpose.
Dr. Jeff: Hmm.
Rob Jackson: And sometimes it's age to age and peer to peer in the playground, and sometimes it's much worse than that. Acts, acts of perpetration, and so on and so forth. And so we have original sin, we have others sins, and then we have to come back to our sins. We are not victims, you know, in Christ, we can see that he will use these things.
To his good, to his glory, and to our good. And I don't think that's a Spiritual bypass. Just says, well, you know, God works all things for good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose. I know we have [00:10:00] to be fully orbed in our theology and sympathetic to the person in front of us, but I don't think that verse is like a cliche.
I think it's still true. And so we're sitting with the wounded. Who needs to assess are the wounds from generational sin? Uh, well original sin, generational sins, other sins, my sins. It isn't Jesus Christ, the answer for all of that. And I can do none of it without the person of the Holy Spirit. But in Christ, I can do all things.
Dr. Jeff: This is, there's gonna be so much, uh, fun to dig into and talk about. Uh, I'm reflecting just 'cause I always like to amplify the problem first. You know, this is a bigger question than, than the ones we're asking right now. There's something huge going on here. I have a lot of friends who are, you know, sort of all over the map politically, Spiritually, and so forth.
I have a lot of, and I, I have a lot of friends who were Jewish. Uh, we have [00:11:00] so many things in common. We have so many things where we differ recently visiting with a Jewish friend and, and we're talking about this oppressor versus oppressed narrative. Right. You know, it seems to govern all the way we view political relationships and everything else.
Rob Jackson: Yeah. And he said, I, he said, I think Christians are to blame for this. I think Christians are to blame, really? Why? He said, because you celebrate Christ on the cross. And it's led to this belief that whoever's suffering the most is therefore the most righteous. And, uh, I was like, oh, great. Conversation opener.
Dr. Jeff: Yeah. Let, lemme make sure, what do we do with this? Lemme get a cup of coffee first and then, then we'll, then we'll dig into it. Uh, you know, there's a sense in which I see this happen. I see especially people coming from a par very particular perspective in the Evangelical church today. They do seem to believe and teach that your level of brokenness is your level of righteousness.
Rob Jackson: Yeah.
Dr. Jeff: That [00:12:00] if you, you know, and we even have this term for it, intersectionality. Mm-hmm. If you have one disability of some sort, that's bad. If you, if you have multiple disabilities, you know, you're a physically disabled person who has five different mental health things that have been identified and you're transgender and, uh, you're poor, and you know you're in a mi, a physical minority, uh, uh, racial minority group, then no one can touch you.
You, you, you are the ultimate righteous person because you're so deeply wounded and such a victim at so many different levels. Yeah. Yeah.
Rob Jackson: I mean, I get that Dr. Jeff and to the point, you can't say anything else, or that becomes another victimization of that person. There can't even be an honest, tell me more.
May I share with you? I'm not sure we're thinking the same way. I'm not sure that we're gonna land at the same place, [00:13:00] but I sure want to hear more about, about, about you. Tell me your story.
Dr. Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. The, the interesting thing is that, that somehow people have come to believe that their ability to articulate how they suffer.
Is their path to righteousness. Like they forget the entire part of Jesus's narrative here, that he conquered death in hell, rose from the grave so that we wouldn't have our identity and our victimhood.
Rob Jackson: So true. And you know, when I read some of the sort of the fathers of our faith, even going back two and three and 400 years ago, they talk a lot about afflictions and many had afflictions of a variety of types.
And it wasn't like it was a badge of honor, but it also wasn't like, oh. Poor me, I'm a victim, you know, is what [00:14:00] is God gonna do with this affliction. It is a school where the sovereignty of God is gonna use the affliction in my life to make me more like Jesus. And in the end, that's bringing more glory to God and subsequently, that's where I'm gonna find my greatest joy.
Dr. Jeff: Wow.
Rob Jackson: So it's, it's, it's gonna be important I think. For the, for all of us to be cautious that we're not, um, wearing our issues as identity statements or feeling poor is, you know, woe is me. I can't help myself or look at how much I hurt. Let's compare how much I hurt to how much you hurt.
Dr. Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Rob Jackson: You know, God can use affliction.
It doesn't have to use affliction, doesn't have to use us.
Dr. Jeff: Yeah, man, that's wise. I love it. Well, I think we, we, we can all relate to this [00:15:00] and, and everybody who's watching or listening would maybe have these struggles internally or at least know of a young person who has said something to the effect of, I identify as L-G-B-T-Q.
Rob Jackson: Right?
Dr. Jeff: Or I identify as a transgender person. And you know, there are 50 different. 58 different transgender identities. Uh, that was at least the last time I looked at health healthline uh, dot com. That was, uh, that was, that was how many were listed there.
Rob Jackson: Right.
Dr. Jeff: And, and so PE people have not, it's, it's not even about sex, is it?
It's like, it, it's a, I have gotten the impression from young adults who are not sexually active. They still identi, they still have their identity in something that they think they feel about sexuality.
Rob Jackson: Yeah. Yeah, man. And interestingly, when you think about the sexual [00:16:00] revolution that we started going through in the sixties.
Which has created all this bondage. You know, I mean, there's things that predated to the sixties, but nevertheless, in our lifetimes, it feels to me like there's been this emphasis on, um, sexuality being, or a point of identification. But when I work with men who are struggling with pornography as an example, I always talk with 'em about, look, you, you know, this is not really about sex.
Right?
Dr. Jeff: Mm, mm-hmm.
Rob Jackson: I mean, you find yourself craving or com, you know, being compelled to use pornography and things of that sort. Maybe you've had multiple affairs or still even more virtual affairs, and you might think in the earliest days of your recovery. This is about sex, but let me tell you now, and let me remind you gently every day hereafter, this has never been about [00:17:00] sex.
You know, that is just the tip of the iceberg. That is a symptom. And so I feel like today, when the younger person basically says, my sexuality is my identity, they're just basically doing what others have done before them.
Dr. Jeff: Mm-hmm. It
Rob Jackson: is just getting morphed now into the language of gender as opposed to sexuality.
You know, biological male and female, you know, two types has become the, the dozens. So now the word gender has to be dis differentiated between, you know, the, uh, the biological sex, if you will. Yeah. Yeah, well, we, you know, you would have to, you would've to be coming from another planet to not have seen this and worried about it, maybe [00:18:00] worrying about it in yourself, but certainly in other people that you know.
Dr. Jeff: And one of our speakers at Summit Ministries, Christopher Yu on regularly speaks about having your identity in Christ rather than in your sexuality. Rob, what I love about the conversation that you and I get to have is, what does that actually look like? How does that happen? Yeah. Walk us through moving from having our identity, because anything could be a placeholder if we say identity in my sex or my gender.
Mm-hmm. It could be anything. You could take out the word gender and put in the word career, and you could take out the word career and put in the word, uh, athletic ability or, or whatever it happens to be. How do you move from there to having your identity in Christ? For me, I think we even have to back up and talk about my identity first is I am fallen in my nature and an absolute rebellion against God, even if not at a conscious level.
Rob Jackson: So my [00:19:00] identity is I'm a sinner, separated from my creator.
Dr. Jeff: Hmm.
Rob Jackson: And then we find, you know, the, the misery that comes with that. Coupled with the grace where Jesus says, you know, let me lean into your misery. You know, let me exchange my holiness for your sinfulness. Come be a part of this union that I have with the Father and the Spirit.
So any talk of identity in Christ I think has to be contextualized in union. With Christ, who is one of the three persons of the Holy Trinity.
Dr. Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Rob Jackson: And I am amazed and dumbfounded and, um, unable to express the joy I have at the thought that the father, the son and the Spirit are one.
Dr. Jeff: Yeah.
Rob Jackson: And there is a [00:20:00] holy society, a, a gentle conversation, you know, a loving environment.
That God has in himself. And so when we have our identity in Christ, we are a part of that fellowship.
Dr. Jeff: Mm mm
Rob Jackson: And that transcends male and female and black and white and other races, and the educated and the less educated. And those with money and those with less, that moves us from the natural to the supernatural.
Dr. Jeff: Yeah. See, I'm absolutely convinced that to be a Christian is to be in a supernatural relationship. Mm-hmm. And to be involved in a supernatural religion. Mm-hmm. And these two go together. Yeah. Yeah. So identity. So that's a starting point, is all of that. Yeah. That's a starting point. Yeah. [00:21:00] Yeah, man. Well, so you, you gotta begin by recognizing.
Your nature is as a sinner. Mm-hmm. And that you are in need of the grace that is being offered to you. Uh, that's a message that I think a lot of people have heard, maybe all of their lives. But the, the, the culture is so powerful that it makes it difficult to even hear what that means from God's perspective.
Like, we're always imposing on it what we want it to mean or right. Saying, oh, well that's just church talk. That doesn't really relate to anything else. You know? And in the therapy community, I'm sure what you just said, fellow therapists would look at you and say. What kind of a nut are you and how can you be a good therapist if you start off with an assumption like that?
Rob Jackson: Yeah. Yeah. I remember when I began my master's [00:22:00] program in clinical psychology at a state university, I went to our chairman of the department and said, may I hold some meetings? Uh, I want to invite my peers and, and others to come and have conversations about the integration of theology and psychology.
And I didn't know how this was gonna go over because there was no fruit that this man might be of a Christian persuasion. But he was open-minded and he was fun. And he said, sure, Jackson, go ahead. Well, I put my, my signs up and I said, you know, come, you know, this time of evening at this location and let's talk about the integration of theology and psychology.
My posters started coming down. Hmm. I put 'em back up and finally my major professor came to me and she whispered in my ear, she says, you gotta let this go. I said, let what go the these posters. I said, are you the one taking my posters down? Yeah, we cannot have this. [00:23:00] I said, well, first I would've never put them up without permission.
You know, I wouldn't have assumed the right to put them up, but I got the right to put them. I got the permission to put them up. What's the problem? So, yeah, I've fought this battle my whole life. Uh, professional life as a person who loves clinical work, sound, clinical work, looking at the whole person, the Spirit, the mind, the body, and the relationships daring.
Not to only Spiritualize, but I would challenge the secular to not only psychology. Yes. Right? Yes. Great distinction, which you, you come to when you have a larger, a whole, a whole worldview, not just Yes. Reductionist worldview. That's right. Yeah. So for me it is like, okay, we now receive the grace to cooperate with our [00:24:00] creator and live in such a way that agrees with how he designed us.
Dr. Jeff: Yeah. And so if we go back and say he designed you either male or female. Based on his, the mystery of his will, then would it not be wise for us to submit ourselves to his wisdom and his love? And cooperate accordingly as a biological male or a biological female. Mm-hmm. And that doesn't mean that one therefore of course, has to go get married and have children in a family, or that doesn't mean that the male can't be a music major as I was back in the day.
Rob Jackson: Or the female can't, you know, be an athlete. I mean, those stereotypes are let them be dinosaurs. Okay? Yeah. Let them be dinosaurs. But it's gonna be so important for us to let God be God and realize this goes back to [00:25:00] creationism. Hmm. When you have a person saying, I am dissatisfied in how I am at the core of my biological being, and I think I'm gonna change that, it makes me think like going to some world renowned museum and, and going into the.
To the art world and seeing something that, you know, a Rembrandt has painted and say, can I have some paint and brushes? I believe I'm gonna improve on this a bit. Hmm. Just, just bear with me. Hmm. I'm, I'm gonna make this better. Hmm. We can't, every person we ever encounter as a masterpiece. Wow. We talk about the Imago Day being, you know, made in the image of God, every person a masterpiece.
I just wish we all do it in faith and lived it out accordingly. [00:26:00] Yeah. And, and living it out is something that you, uh, you focus on a lot what it means to have life in this, in the Spirit. Yes. Yes. Not just physical life, not just making it from day to day without your heart giving out. Right. But life in the Spirit.
Dr. Jeff: I'd love for you to talk about what that means. 'cause I think, you know, I know some friends who are like, that's a little weird, and other friends are like. That's all. You know, that like they're Pentecostal. Like that's all we're gonna talk about. So, you know, love to hear. Yeah, I think it's interesting. We can start with words like inspiration, the Latin in Inspirus in Spirit.
Rob Jackson: May we have inspiration for what it means to be. You, Dr. Jeff and me, Rob, and whomever else, someone else is inspiration. Uh, enthusiasm. The Greek, you know, in Theos, [00:27:00] in God. I mean, who doesn't need more enthusiasm today? But we only need the genuine enthusiasm that God gives, not the enthusiasm of Christian humanism or secularism or any other ism.
Yeah. And so it is how do we come to this place where we get fully engaged in the moment with the wonder of the creator saying, I know you, yeah, you were precious. You know, you don't think so. Look at, look at what happened on the cross for you. But you see my concern, Dr. Jeff. We've got a generation that no longer even has command of the vocabulary we used to use in trying to evangelize and disciple others.
Dr. Jeff: Mm-hmm. You know, there's an interesting article and video [00:28:00] called The Death of Sacred Speech. And, you know, a, a dozen or more words that we have used in our Christian vocabulary has pretty well fallen out of the common culture. And so you use words like regeneration and justification, and you know that that p word propitiation, I mean, even a lot of people in churches today are like, what?
Rob Jackson: You know, what are we talking about? I remember years ago at Focus sitting in a meeting in a man that I just love. He, he's such a, a brilliant mind. He said, I think we're headed to a place when we're not gonna have the words we need to evangelize people 'cause they're not gonna understand the words we're using and what I see in the LGBT community.
They're masterful. I don't mean the individuals, but the movement is masterful at changing the words. [00:29:00] Words matter, you know, so we're talking about in Christ, that's very different than saying, I'm a person who goes to church. Mm-hmm. That's very different than say, you know, I, I know right from wrong. I have parents who will tell me, I, we raised our children in a Christian home.
We took them to a Christian school, uh, and all these things, you know, one more adjective, you know, Christian, Christian, Christian, Christian. And I always wanna be gentle, but I, I will remind people, you know, church is wonderful, but the church didn't die on the cross for your child or for me, the Christian school in full support of it.
But it didn't shed blood and could not. For the sin that I'm guilty of or your child, and knowing right from wrong, I mean, I, I think the enemy knows the Bible far better [00:30:00] than I do, but the knowledge is not the same thing as transformation. Yeah. The knowledge of the Bible by itself doesn't transform the individual the Spirit does.
And so I think whether we're talking about the clinical issue like depression and insecurity. Well, depression and the insecurity that comes from anxiety, or whether we're talking about some of these sexual concerns or a midlife crisis. Mm-hmm. I think it's gonna come back to God is bigger than we can imagine, and so is his love and kindness.
But I know Dallas Willard talked about how it seems like in the American culture, the message of Jesus has become over familiar to the majority. And therefore it has been brought down with contempt. Mm. And he was talking about how we need to find a new way to introduce Jesus Christ. Yeah. Yeah. [00:31:00] Well, we, we've got a few minutes left in the show here and I'd love to continue digging in on this.
Dr. Jeff: I know people, when I share with people, especially if I have the opportunity to pray with them, I'll often, um, pray that the Holy Spirit will guide them, will walk alongside of them. And I know that a lot of people, even those who aren't particularly religious, or maybe they're Christian but just haven't really given it a lot of thought, seems struck by that and appreciate that.
But I think it's still baffling. How do you do that? How would I know? Like I want to be the kind of person who is so sensitive to what's going on in my surroundings that I see what's happening Spiritually and can respond at that deep level. Yeah. How am I going to have. How's that? How does that work for me?
How do I, how do I do it? [00:32:00] How do I walk in the spear? I'm just curious what, you know, how you do this in, in your life and, and, and how this can help, especially this rising generation. Yeah. Well, I would have to preface, I do it very imperfectly. Mm. And often erratically and sometimes not at all. Hmm. Well, thank you for saying that because that, that's it's, it's true.
Rob Jackson: Let's start, let start there. That releases us from the tension here. Yeah. But I also find that when I have the grace to walk in, the Spirit is practicing his presence. Mm-hmm. There's peace. You know, I had a seven year panic disorder that began when I was in middle school. And lasted till I was a junior in college.
Dr. Jeff: Mm. Preparing for the music ministry, you know? Wow. And so it wrapped itself around daily [00:33:00] panic attacks in a social context of eating in public. And I was just a mess. Okay. You know what? I would've given for peace, you know? Um. Proverbs 1220 talks about those who plan for peace have joy, and I have been learning peace with God is everything.
Rob Jackson: It is the only thing. And of course he gives it to us. It's not like our keeping score. Oh, I had a good day or a bad day, or I did this, or I didn't do that. But it is enjoying him for who he is, not just waiting to see if he's gonna give us what we want. You know, it's appreciating that he is the gift.
Dr. Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Rob Jackson: You know, and he has gifts to give also, but he's the gift, the primary, he himself is the way of escape. You know, [00:34:00] not that there's gonna be some other escape. Perhaps. And so if you say, what is it like to be in the Spirit and walking by the Spirit, I think it goes back to the fruit of the Spirit, the love, joy, peace, patience, et cetera.
Do Do we have a sense of I am receiving that, I mean, I still can't produce it.
Dr. Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Rob Jackson: I can't produce any of it. I can't even hold onto it.
Dr. Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Rob Jackson: But like a current that runs through a wire, I can be a conduit. And so I'm, I'm wanting people to understand there is peace with God, and then he will help you to have more peace with yourself.
And so if you tell me I'm not satisfied in my skin, I'm not satisfied with my sexuality, I perceive my gender is something else, I wanna meet you with love and respect and say, tell me more.
Dr. Jeff: Mm-hmm.
Rob Jackson: And I'm really sorry, but is it [00:35:00] possible? If you took God on his terms and found that he is peace, that peace within yourself might follow.
And then if you have peace with God and peace within yourself, more times than not, you're gonna be able to find peace toward others.
Dr. Jeff: Wow. Right.
Rob Jackson: There will be exceptions more times than not, even if that person is not able to be peaceful toward you. You're not going to forfeit your peace with God to get into that argument.
Dr. Jeff: Yeah. Mm. I love the way you phrased that as I, I, I, I wish I, I would actually was asked this question yesterday about the fruit of the Spirit, and I wish I would've approached it the way you just did that I can't, I can't produce that, but God can produce it through me. I can't make that happen. No. But I can [00:36:00] be a conduit for him making it happen through me.
That's right. So having so thinking of your identity in Christ is not just that I have me here and I'm going to choose to identify in Christ rather than identify in my sexuality or intelligence or whatever it is actually saying, God, would you be the source of my identity. Totally and only, I mean, I don't think that we're to, to say, Hey, my identity, you know, I'll use myself as a point of reference here as a 60 plus year old white guy, evangelical Christian, you know, run all the demographics.
Rob Jackson: That's not my identity. None of that is my identity. All of it taken together is not my identity. You know, my identity is not whether I. Perform well, well or poorly, although I sure thought it was, yeah. [00:37:00] You know, I confuse self-esteem and self-worth for years. You know, if I'm performing well and you agree, my self-esteem is good, but if I don't perform well and you don't agree, or if I perform well and you still don't agree.
Mm-hmm. Now my self-esteem is. Bad, but self-worth is all about Jesus performing perfectly for you and I. Hmm. And God the Father is saying, I'm so pleased that Christ in you, just as God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow will never change. His understanding of who you are in Christ is also steadfast and true even when you don't believe it yourself.
Dr. Jeff: Yeah. Yeah, man. Well, I, I, this really means so much that you would take us to this, this deeper level of understanding. I, I, I, I [00:38:00] do sense that people want that kind of peace, that there's a hunger for it. Uh, but understanding what this actually looks like. Can, can you, I know we just got a few minutes left, but I would like for you to talk about this from the perspective of being a therapist because you address and talk about Whole Person Care.
Rob Jackson: Yeah. And it seems to me this is a good place to, to bring this up, not only so we can understand it for ourselves, but so that we can be helpful to others. I would love to do that, and so much of it becomes autobiographical because of the experience I had with panic disorder. I remember sitting in church, a Baptist church, not a Pentecostal church, asking for God to heal me, hoping that I would have enough faith to be healed, and it didn't happen.
When I hear someone say, I have prayed to God that he would take away my same sex attraction. [00:39:00] Well, I pray that God would take away my panic disorder. Mm-hmm. I know what it feels like to want something to be taken away that plagues every minute of every day of your life. Yeah. And so I only have concern and respect for that.
And growing up in, um. Seventies, north Mississippi rural environment, there was only so much psychological help available. Almost everything was only Spiritualized, and the thought of a Christian counselor would've been an oxymoron. Like you can't really believe those two could coexist, right? So there wasn't much help available, and the pastors wouldn't be talking about the psychological and the physical.
And if you would go to a therapist, they would only [00:40:00] psych and not talk about the Spiritual, you know, um, they might talk about some of the behavioral stuff, but nobody was addressing the whole person saying, you know what? You're created in God. He is a Trinitarian being, you know, father, son, and Spirit. One, one God.
Here you are a person and you have a Spirit. You are a Spirit and you possess a mind and a body, and just like the Trinity, you live in relationship with others. Mm-hmm. Well, first of all, do you live in relationship with your creator, but we've already addressed that. In any event you live in, in relationship with others, how is your Spirit relating?
How is your mind relating? How is your physicality relating to the people in your life? And do you even know how to guard your heart? Do you know how to renew your mind? Do you know how to sacrifice your body in a Romans 12 kind of way and submit it to God? Who just [00:41:00] takes it and uses it in a beautiful way?
You know, do you know how to, how to love others as God loves you? So I think all of this is fundamentally at the root of good care, whether we're addressing it clinically and professionally, or whether we're addressing it ministerially and pastorally, or whether we're just a lay counselor or one friend talking to another over a cup of coffee.
Dr. Jeff: Hmm. But in my experience, I got so sick with panic disorder and uh. Case of di a case of mononucleosis that got diagnosed late, that the doctor said, you can either go to the hospital and or go home. If you go home, you're gonna do what I tell you to do, and you're gonna have to have like six weeks of bed rest.
Rob Jackson: Wow. And I'm in college. I've, I've got an attitude, I got a schedule. I mean, I'm not wanting to have any of this, but I didn't have any choice. [00:42:00] I remember trying to read my Bible one Sunday morning thinking I was supposed to. Mom and dad had gone to church. I was left there by myself. It was a Sunday morning.
I'm watching TV and I'm thinking, this is not okay. This is not a time for a, a Western. I'm flipping a channel. I come to Adrian Rogers from Bellevue Baptist, and he says, begin to do now what you believe to be God's will for your life. Begin now I turned the TV off and tried to pick up my Bible. Actually the way I was laying, laying on the couch couldn't pick it up because my liver was swollen with mononucleosis and I had to let the Bible drop to the coffee table.
And the first honest thing I had said to God was, God, really? What do you want from me?
The impression you, I want you, I just wanna be in a relationship [00:43:00] with you. That would be years before I would have some understanding of what that would look like and what that would become and what it would mean to me. But we have these Spiritual issues that are complicated by mental health concerns.
That can be classic axis one diagnoses like anxiety and depression and axis two diagnoses. Some people have personality disorders like narcissism or antisocial personality or passive aggression, and a lot of that comes out of trauma and a reacting in the flesh as opposed to responding in the Spirit.
And we can go have these issues with our bodies and our physical constitution and health, and maybe we're not as tall as we want to be or we're not as whatever. Compared to someone else. And then we have different social abilities for being outgoing or being introverted, having energy, or not enough.
It's like [00:44:00] you as a person or a table. You have four legs. One is Spirit, one is body, one is mind, one is relationships. Mm-hmm. A stable table has legs that are equal in length and equally strong. Yeah. And usually a person has a relative strength and a relative weakness among Spirit, mind, body, and relationships.
Dr. Jeff: Mm-hmm. And if they're playing to their weaknesses, that creates one problem. If they try to play to their strength, that can create another, because neither of those approaches are looking to the lordship of Christ. Yeah. And sometimes it will take talking to a pastor for the Spiritual it will take talking to a professional mental health person for the mental, it will take going to a physician for some of the medications and things that may be necessary.
Rob Jackson: It may be taking time with the nutritionist or [00:45:00] an exercise coach or working with the body, and then even reading books about how to make conversations with people when you're otherwise. Uh, socially awkward. Right. Wow. All of it, man. Well that's, that's so helpful to see all those pieces come together. And I think it, it gives people permission to say, I think I'm weak in this area and I'd like to be stronger.
Dr. Jeff: And there is something that you can actually do. Absolutely. But I'm gonna take away, you know, one of the key things you said earlier on is that this isn't even you doing this. This is God. You being willing to be a conduit through which he does Absolutely. Life. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, Rob, I so, you know, so many of these conversations, I don't expect them to go the way, the way that they do, but I just know that God works through the way they turn out.
And this is gonna be one of those shows. I think people are gonna be so encouraged to feel like, oh yes, I [00:46:00] can, um. I can relax. I can live in the Spirit. I can have the Holy Spirit walk alongside of me as my companion, and I can realize my identity in Christ. That's right. Your best friend will clarify your identity.
Hmm. Love it. Thanks so much for being on the show today. You, it's my joy. Thanks so much, Dr. Jeff. Thank you to my guest, Rob Jackson for joining me on the Dr. Jeff Show podcast today. If you want more resources like this about the importance of Christian sexuality, marriage, and identity, having your identity in Christ, rather than in whatever the world says you need to identify as, go to summit.org/resources for free articles, videos, eBooks, all kinds of things there.
Thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you next week.
Thank you for listening to today's [00:47:00] episode. The Dr. Jeff Show Podcast is a resource of Summit Ministries. Summit equips and supports the rising generation to embrace God's truth and champion a biblical worldview. If you want more resources that can help you live out a biblical worldview as a student, or reach the next generation as an educator, church leader, or parent, head over to summit.
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