One of the things that I do here is I'm really pretty involved in counseling. and over the years I've, had the opportunity, the privilege, to counsel a lot of folks. One of the things that I have come to discover, in counseling is the fact that every sin struggle, every relational struggle can, can, can always boil down to the fact. That the gospel is not being experienced in its fullness.
The gospel may not be understood or it simply may not be being applied and it's not being experienced, but at the end of the day, the number one problem that I find In the lives of counselees, if you will, in my own life, in our lives, I believe has to do with our failure in, in laying hold of the gospel. Pastor Milton oftentimes talks about how when he does counsel that he's got one tool in the box. That's it, one tool, the gospel, and he is forever trying to apply the gospel into the lives of the people who he is counseling. Any sin struggle that I experienced in my life can be directly traced back to my failure to embrace the gospel.
I want to take some time now to read for you a number of quotes and I think this point is buttressed by what these excellent believers have to say. CJ Mahaney says the following. That 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....
