OK, so, continuing on then, following Christ as saint and sinner, of course, the, the, the whole lesson, these several weeks of lessons are grounded in the great commission. we've talked about the need for an exalted view of God, the need for humility, the need for a magnificent view of Christ. Last week, we covered the need for genuine conversion and so today's topic is the necessity of gospel grounding or gospel centrality. let me go ahead and read off a few quotes before we jump into some points that I want to present.
the greatest need in the American church today is the recovery of the church's central message, the gospel. Far too often in evangelical churches, the gospel is simply assumed, and being so assumed, its voice is muffled, its entailments are ignored, and its power is drained. More significantly, when the gospel is assumed, it is in grave danger of being displaced. The church is therefore in great need of a thoroughgoing return to gospel centrality.
The measure of such centrality will be the extent to which the gospel is functional, determining the nature of the church's life, the substance of its teaching, the content of its worship, and the core of its proclamation. that is a quote coming from a book called The Gospel Centered Life, years ago by CJ Mahaney. I love that quote. next quote, from Timothy Keller.
The main problem then in the Christian life is that we have not thought out the deep implications of the gospel. We have not used the gospel in and on all parts of our life. Richard Lovelace says that most people's problems are just a failure to be oriented to the gospel, a failure to grasp and believe it through and through. Luther Martin Luther says the truth of the gospel is the principal article of all Christian doctrine....
