Honestly, if I had to admit to an area of my ministry that I feel weakest in (other than administration), I used to say that it was counseling.  Further, I used to say that I hated counseling and I would lecture others on the necessity of spending all of my time in preparation for preaching and not “wasting” it on counseling.

Recently, however, I have done a good bit of counseling and as a result have seen pretty good results.  Families reconciled, marriages restored, and students growing in their faith.  I have spent time reflecting now on what has made me such an amazing counselor (see how fast we move to pride), and I have deduced that the results seen in my counseling are the direct result of me being a terrible counselor.

See, I honestly have nothing to say to help hurting people or to put families back together or to give a hope to a person doubting their faith.  Since I have nothing to say, I find myself relying completely on the Word of God to say what I can’t say.  Amazingly, what happens is that the powerful word of God does God’s work in the lives of his people.  Certainly, none of us are surprised to learn that God works through his word, but I’m not sure we always act like we believe it.

All of us become counselors at some point.  Pastors, parents, employees, everyone is occasionally asked for advice on issues that matter.  Let me encourage you with these words, what you think doesn’t really matter and usually will not make a difference.  Fortunately, however, the gospel speaks into every situation and always makes a difference.  It is readily available and is living and active.  Speak God’s word’s into people’s situations, he knows how best to resolve problems.

I still believe counseling to be a weakness in my ministry, but I am thankful that changing lives continues to be a strength in God’s ministry to his children.

Recently, on a Wednesday night, I shared some thoughts about our responsibility as Christians to engage culture. Al Mohler has defined our (American) culture using seven characteristics, each of which begin with the word self.

• Self-fulfillment. We are a culture that seeks to satisfy ourselves, seen primarily in the triumph of the therapeutic culture. Self-help books and self-therapy books abound.
• Self-sufficiency. We actually brag about this one. I did it my way all by myself. This is American, but this is not necessarily godly.
• Self-definition. We define what it means to be human (the abortion debate, the cloning debate, and even the designer birth debate), what it means to be male and female (the gay marriage debate), what it means to be _______ (insert your own).
• Self-absorption. We are totally focused on ourselves. We have back decks and back yards, no longer do we value front porches and neighbors. We regularly see divorce because “I wasn’t happy…I needed to do this for me.”
• Self-transcendence. This suggests that we can pick up bits and pieces of religion from where ever we want and that will be good enough. We recognize the inherit spirituality within ourselves, but we fool ourselves into believing that we can define and dictate God.
• Self-enhancement. This is the idea that we can actually make ourselves better than God did. This abounds with the ideas that we can extend life, with parents who give breast augmentation to their kids for graduation gifts, with liposuction, and botox.
• Self-Security. We believe ourselves to be relatively secure. Though we say things like “You aren’t promised tomorrow,” few of us rarely believe that to the very core of our beings. We are pretty confident that tomorrow will come and that it will be pretty good (nearly half of all Americans).

As Christian people, we are called to live in our culture, but to do so with the intention of changing our culture. We are not supposed to look like our culture. The Christian life is a counter-cultural life. As we seek to live out the gospel and share the gospel with our friends, relatives, co-workers, and neighbors, let me encourage you to be different. We are to be defined less by “self” and more by Christ. He is our ultimate judge. All that we do should be to bring glory to him, not to satisfy ourselves. If simply take Christ at his word to love him with all of our hearts and to love our neighbors as our selves, then we will see that our culture has lost its bearing.

As the summer draws to a close and as we look forward to the fall, look for your fulfillment in Christ. Do not buy the lies of our culture, instead, accept the truths of God’s word and seek to honor him with your life. Focus on Him and others, and watch as God uses you to transform your world with the gospel.

Mohler’s complete chapter can be found in Preaching the Cross.

What is the Gospel? Greg Gilbert begins his little book by asserting the fact that many Christians have assumed the gospel and have even experienced the gospel, but that they cannot clearly articulate what the gospel is.

Enter Gilbert’s book.  This little book is a fantastic primer on the gospel.  We need to constantly be reminded of the truths of the gospel, and Gilbert has done a great job of that.  Further, keeping in mind the fact that 90% of college graduates will never read another non-fiction book after graduating, the length of Gilbert’s book makes it approachable by Christians of all types.  he has clearly articulated the gospel in a way that is understandable, grace-filled, and applicable to the Christian life.

You will not find anything new in What is the Gospel?, but that is really a good thing.  The gospel is good news, but it is not “new” news.  He spells out the gospel in four issues: God. Man. Christ. Response.

We are accountable to the God who created us.  We have sinned against that God and will be judged.  But God has acted in Jesus Christ to save us, and we take hold of that salvation by repentance from sin and faith in Jesus.

Greg Gilbert reminds us all that the gospel is not second-tier in the Christian faith, that the cross is the center-piece of the gospel, and that the gospel cannot and should not be improved upon,

The pressure to find a “bigger,” more “relevant” gospel seems to have taken hold of a great many people.  Again and again, in book after book, we see descriptions of the gospel that end up relegating the cross to a secondary position.  In its place are declarations that the heart of the gospel is that God is remaking the world, or that he has promised a kingdom that will set everything right, or that he is calling us to join him in transforming our culture.  The result is that over and over again, the death of Jesus in the place of sinners is assumed, marginalized, or even (sometimes deliberately) ignored.

In What is the Gospel?, Greg Gilbert has put the gospel back front and center and has given Christians a great resource to not only proclaim the good news, but to adequately define that good news.

“The apostle Paul was consistent.  Paul desired “that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel” (Ephesians 6:19).  When he said hard things he was able to remind those who knew him how consistent his life was with the gospel (Acts 20:18; 2 Timothy 3:10).  So make sure the message you share is consistent with the message you bear.  Endeavor, by God’s grace, to think through how to keep careful watch over your life as well as your doctrine by living out the gospel.”

-J. Mack Stiles, Marks of the Messenger (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2010), 52.

“The healthy evangelist is asking these questions and looking for answers so as to guard the gospel.  Here is the critical test.  Could you have preached that sermon if Christ had not died on the cross?  Could you have developed that Christian leadership principle had Christ not been crucified?  I’m not saying be impractical-the Bible has much to say about being practical-but make sure that the practical is tied to the message of Jesus.  Otherwise we are on the road to an assumption that will lost the gospel.”

-J. Mack Stiles, Marks of the Messenger (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2010), 41.

“It is generally true that until we see what the teaching of the gospel looks like in someone’s life we do not really understand what it means.  That is why the preaching of the gospel can never be isolated from the life of the church.  Only when non-Christians see the power of the gospel in people they know are they likely to respond to it.”

-Sinclair B. Ferguson, Let’s Study Philippians (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1997), 90.

Preachers who are faithful ministers of the gospel present the whole glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. That means that we must speak clearly about the reality of the ugliness and penalty of sin, from the pulpits that have been entrusted to us.

One of my favorite professors in seminary, Dr. Chad Brand (who also serves as pastor of Northside Baptist Church in Elizabethtown, KY), has recently written an article entitle “Preaching on Sin,” that is in the most recent issue of The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology. Brand writes, “we cannot preach the gospel without preaching on sin.” In the article, he discusses how, “for Jesus, as well as for Paul, an explication of sin is an essential, a non-negotiable part of the gospel proclamation.” Of course, Brand reminds us the point is to “preach on alienation in order to reconcile” sinners to God.

Preachers, let us follow the example of Jesus and Paul by preaching on sin, as we proclaim the grace of God that can bring the reconciliation that we all need! I encourage you to read the entire article on Dr. Brand’s blog: Brandishings.

In light of David’s posts on Preaching Christ, we must also remember to center our preaching of Christ on his cross.  John Stott wrote,

    The fact that a cross became the Christian symbol, and that Christians stubornly refused, 
    in spite of the ridicule, to discard it in favor of something less offensive, can have only on
    explanation.  It means that the centrality of the cross originated in the mind of Jesus
    himself.
       - John Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 31.

Christ himself deemed the cross worthy of his path to victory over death.  He found it necessary for our reconciliation to God. He died in the brutality and incomprehensible offensiveness of the cross taking God’s punishment of our sin upon himself.  If he pointed his life to the cross, so must our preaching.

“We must throw all our strength of judgment, memory, imagination, and eloquence into the delivery of the gospel; and not give to the preaching of the cross our random thoughts while wayside topics engross our deeper meditations…whatever else you do or do not preach, be sure incessantly to bring forth the soul-saving truth of Christ and him crucified.”

-Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2008), 83.

“Our great master theme is the good news from heaven; the tidings of mercy through the atoning death of Jesus, mercy to the chief of sinners upon their believing in Jesus.”

-Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2008), 83.