The Gospel is for now. We need to become accustomed to preaching the Gospel to believers. Because that's what I need, I need the Gospel of Jesus Christ again every day. So we need to help people to understand what the nowism of the Gospel means. What does it mean to have a marriage that sits in the middle of the Gospel? How will that radically change the way a husband and wife relate to one another? What does it mean to have the Gospel surround your parenting? How will that change the things that you do and say as a parent? What does it mean to have a Gospel view of your finances, a Gospel view of your physical body, a Gospel view of everything in your existence? Because the Gospel is not just an aspect of theology, the Gospel is your life. It's everything. It's a window through which you and I are meant to look at everything in our existence. Let me ask you, could you write 10 pages on the Gospel in your marriage? Could you? Five pages? A page? A paragraph? A sentence? Ambassadorial calling. Essential that the peace of Christ is ruling my heart, so I live with that, rest in Christ. Understanding the nowism of the Gospel, so I'm carrying the Gospel to you. I haven't reduced the Bible to a bunch of rules and principles. And then he says, "Teaching and admonishing one another." Who's doing that? Who's doing that? Who's doing that? Everyone to everyone. This is an amazing concept that the church of Jesus Christ is meant to be a gathering of teachers. Everyone. Everyone is a counselor. Now, I think it's impossible to have a human relationship without being a counselor. And I'm not concerned about just the formal secular counseling that's out there that isn't biblical. I'm concerned about the 10,000 conversations every day by people who are given life advice who don't realize that they are. If Greta Mae Snortz calls you, and she tells you that she's found a joint in her son's book bag, for those of you who are not up in current culture, I don't mean a knuckle. I mean marijuana. What you do next is Gospel ministry. It may be an anti-Gospel ministry, Christ forgetting, legalistic, this is what you should do right away without ever considering the person and work of Christ and reflecting his grace in this woman's life. But you can't have a human relationship without being in some form of ministry position, because that's how God designed life to work. So everyone is a teacher. Now, in this context, what does it mean to teach? Here's what it means. It means I, in this encounter with you, will help you to look at life through the lens of the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ because it's the word of Christ dwelling in me richly that is the content of the teaching I'm going to do for you. It's how does this particular thing that we're talking about look when it's looked through the lens of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ? That's teaching. What's admonishing? Well, admonishing is putting the mirror of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in front of you so you can see yourself as you actually are. It's helping you to see yourself in the mirror of the Gospel, Lord Jesus Christ. I love this metaphor. You woke up this morning, you stumbled to the bathroom, you took your first look in the mirror, suppressing your screams at the damage that the night had done. Now, you instinctively receive the message in the mirror. You know in your sad heart that the mirror is absolutely accurate. And then you pull out instruments of human repair. Some of us even put chemical substances on our epidermis in order to bring us to the place where we're willing to make our public appearance. Now, the Bible is the world's most accurate mirror. People don't need to know what you think about them. Stop it. Too much opinion stuff. Who placed you in that position? You know what I think? My honest, and maybe this is just antisocial me, when someone says that to me, I'm thinking, "I don't care." Tell me what's right and true. Put the mirror in front of me. There are 1,000 voices in my life, I get so confused. I need accuracy of self- awareness, the Gospel gives me that. You can't give that to me. Now, here's the problem, that all of us are all the time looking into carnival mirrors. We are. You know what the carnival mirror does? It shows you you, but with distortion. You don't actually have a six-foot neck and a three- inch torso. It's the carnival mirror of cultural values, the carnival mirror of old family values, the carnival mirror of the opinion of a friend. The carnival mirror of your own distorted view of yourself because you still have spiritual
Transcript: Session 6
WOMEN HELPING WOMEN
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