SERMON SPOTLIGHT * 10/25/26
The gospel is powerful enough! Do you believe this? Today God’s word makes this claim. Below is an outline summary of the sermon for your further study and deeper reflection.
SERIES: The Church and Counseling
TEXT: 1 Peter 1:3-9
TITLE: Our Hope in Counseling: The Gospel of Christ
PREACHER: Tom Wilkins
BIG IDEA: No matter what you are going through, the gospel is powerful enough!
POINTS:
I. Biblical Counseling is grounded in a real hope in Christ
II. Biblical Counseling leads to an inexpressible joy in and love for Christ
SERMON EXCERPTS:
All quotes and text emphasis are taken directly from the pastor’s notes.
“What if I told you the gospel is powerful enough? What if I added, this is true no matter what? The gospel is powerful enough! Do you believe this? Today God’s word makes this claim!”
“No matter what you are going through, the gospel is powerful enough! What are you going through today? What might we go through tomorrow? Peter will tell you, “You have hope!” God’s word tells it like it is! We are not in heaven yet. Right now, we are grieved by various trials. Trouble of all kinds. Yet God’s power has granted us an everlasting hope through it all! No matter what you are going through, the gospel is powerful enough!”
“Today, we pause in our series in Romans: The Power of God in the Gospel of Christ. But, we do not pause on the power of the gospel. Derek recently announced will continue to preach our series on Romans. Tim will periodically preach through a series on Evangelism. Beginning today, I will periodically preach on The Church and Counseling. Through this series, we will unpack what “biblical counseling” is. What the goal of biblical counseling is. We will also touch on what counseling, discipleship, and fellowship will look like in many contexts of our church life. Yet, our focus will often be (like this morning,) on what we call ‘formal’ biblical counsel.”
“Here is what is coming in this series: (today) The Hope in Counseling: The Gospel of Christ
The Central Aim of Counseling: Maturity in Christ
Progressive Sanctification - Growing in Grace in Christ
The Cornerstone of Counseling: The Word of God
The Authority and Sufficiency of the Word in Counseling
The Counselor in Counseling: The Holy Spirit
ESV - Helper (Advocate)”
“I will focus on two WAYS THIS TEXT PROVES THAT the Gospel is ENOUGH in Counseling.”
“Writing to Christians in Asia Minor, Peter addresses them as exiles in this world, sojourners… this world that is not their home. Peter will go on and describe the many trials that grieve them.
Their trials would catch them off guard (“don’t be surprised”)
They would suffer the loss of friendship and family
Socially, they were quickly cut off and estranged
They were slandered
Suffered for doing good
Faced unjust and harsh treatment from governing authorities
Their marriages struggled deeply
They were plagued by fear, weak faith, pride, anxiety, sinful temptations, and passions of the flesh that warred within them
And on top of all that, the devil himself prowled around seeking to devour them!”
“They needed to be reminded that no matter what they were going through, no matter what they faced, the gospel was powerful enough! Two millennia later, Peter’s letter counsels us! Your trials may not have made the list. But Peter, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, speaks the same hope to you - no matter what you may be going through!”
“You have been born again, and this has been God’s doing. ‘He has caused us to be born again!’”
“PETER TAKES THEM BACK to the same hope that the prophet Ezekiel 36. God has cleansed us from our sins and given us new life. He has given us a new heart. PETER TAKES THEM BACK to the same hope as He recalls Jesus’ words in John 3:7 - ‘You must be born again’ Church, You are no longer who you were! You are now a new creation! This has changed everything. You have been completely transformed!”
“Peter says two things about real hope. First, it’s living. We have been born again to a living hope. God, in His mercy, caused us to be born again. We did not realize this hope. We did not muster up this hope. We could not imagine this hope. We could not fabricate this hope. We could not earn this hope. This living hope is all of grace. His grace granted us new life. His grace granted us living hope!”
“This gracious living hope came to us through the power of the gospel. It came to us through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead! Marvel with me for a moment at the power it took to raise the Son of God. Marvel with me at what the resurrection accomplished: Jesus’ sacrifice in our place is accepted, and He is given the Name that is above every other name! Jesus now sits in power at His Father’s right hand, ruling and reigning in indescribable glory - The King of Kings and Lord of Lords! In that power, we were born again to a living hope!”
“Second, Peter says it’s a lasting hope. Look at Vs 4 and 5: THIS WAS THEIR HOPE 2000 YEARS AGO, THIS IS OUR HOPE TODAY. Our hope is a lasting hope. It is an eternal hope. We were born again “to an inheritance” that is “kept in heaven for [us]” and “guarded through faith” by God’s power until “the last time.” That is lasting hope! And this is good news as we remember that we are not in heaven yet.”
“Right now WE need living hope because Vs 6 - “... now for a little while.” - “you have been grieved by various trials.” Vs 7a says our faith is tested by fire in these trials (“fiery trials”). While our troubles may differ in comparison, trials will continue to plague us!”
“One day we will step, for the first time, onto the green grass of heaven. Until then, we will step into:
Shattered dreams
Shattered relationships
False Accusation
Sickness
Anger
Sorrow
Sexual immorality and confusion
Abandonment
Death, funerals, and graves
Abuse
Crime and Punishment
Divorce
War
Sinning
Being sinned against
Catastrophe
Do we not need the power of the Gospel at work in every one of these? These sorrows affect us DEEPLY! We struggle DEEPLY! I say “deeply” because these lead to the anguish of the soul… Our hearts are troubled. Our souls/hearts are wrenched, grieved, down-casted, enraged, become anxious, fearful, weak, embittered. This is why we need the gospel.”
“Heaven is our true home! But we are not home yet! Until then, what are we going to do? Until then, we will need to remember the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! The gospel needs to function in every single trouble, trial, and circumstance. I love the phrase that I first heard from Mike Bullmore. He spoke of our greatest need in the church. It is “functional centrality of the gospel” at work in our lives. “Jesus living, dying, and rising from the dead for our salvation is meant to affect every area of our lives.” This could not be more true when it comes to receiving counsel and offering counseling! You and I desperately need the best news in all of the world applied to our lives.”
“Jesus bore our sins on his body on the cross and died in our place for our sins. He was resurrected on the third day and that makes it possible that we too will be raised to eternal life! The gospel is the power unto your salvation, AND it is the power that sanctifies and changes you from the inside out.”
RUNNING APPLICATION: So then, as we seek to have the Gospel function in our lives, Q. What are the implications of this living and lasting hope in Christ in our counseling?
“When we go get help, we cannot miss their need for Jesus! When we offer help, we cannot miss our need for Jesus! The resurrection power of living and lasting hope needs to function in all our counseling.”
“God has called your pastors to “keep watch over your souls” (Hebrews 13:17). It’s our joy. It’s a privilege. It’s sobering. It’s humbling. We take it seriously. We have a biblical mandate and conviction to lead and remain engaged in formal counseling. At times a person’s trials may require professional help. Sometimes we even recommend it. This would supplement biblical counseling, yet it should not substitute/replace it.”
“The gospel is powerful enough to touch us deep enough to grant us living and lasting hope in everything that troubles us!”
“We want a quick fix. “Things are not changing!” And fear, anger, or impatience get a foothold. This can lead us to go anywhere. We might go to anyone. We will listen to anything… anywhere else but the church; anyone else but your pastors; even AI, scraping the internet for answers sounds good. Let’s be honest, we may trying to solve this ourselves in our time and in a way we are comfortable. But I am telling you, THE GOSPEL IS SUFFICIENT.”
“If we believe that, in the power of the gospel, Christ has brought us from death to life, He brought us from darkness into His marvelous light, He has replaced our hearts of stone with new hearts of flesh, He offers forgiveness of our sins, He promised us never-ending joy in Christ in heaven, He gave us eternal life…in matters of the heart and soul, you have everything you need in Christ. Why would we go anywhere else?”
“The gospel is powerful enough, no matter what we are going through! Counseling needs to function in the centrality of Christ’s all-powerful gospel.”
“The living and lasting hope that is ours in Christ is life-giving to the soul! Not only is it life-giving to the soul, it is also growing our faith in Christ! Our hope in Jesus is leading us somewhere - an inexpressible joy in and love for Christ!”
“Our text today proclaims much about the gospel. It preaches everlasting hope in Christ! We also see in vs 7 that hope leads to worship! Living hope in Christ results in praise of Christ, glory in Christ, honor of Christ, love for Christ, faith in Christ, and JOY that words simply cannot describe!”
“PETER COULD HAVE ENDED in verse 6 “...grieved by various trials.” He could have ended with “hang in there Christian!” “I know it’s hard!” But he didn’t. God’s word tells us that our trials are doing something. 6 takes us to 7. Here is the progression of verse 7. In God’s goodness, our trials purify our faith. Our faith is proved out as genuine! What a gift! Doubt clouds our faith. Worldly hopes muddy our faith.”
“Trials are in God’s hands - God purifies and grows our faith in Him. Our faith in God results in the Glorifying of God “at the revelation of Jesus!” Notice that Peter does not guarantee that the trials will end right away. BUT there is a glorious day coming when they will - WHEN JESUS RETURNS!”
“But verse 7 has not ended! All of this has been taking us somewhere! Right now we do not see Jesus yet. Yet NOW we will LOVE Him. Right now we do not see Jesus yet. Yet NOW we will BELIEVE in Him. Right now we do not see Jesus yet. Yet even NOW we will rejoice with JOY that is inexpressible! NO MATTER WHAT WE ARE GOING THROUGH, THE GOSPEL IS POWERFUL ENOUGH to lead us to JOY in Christ.”
“Our text opened with God’s glory and honor as the goal! Vs 3: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!” and we find the goal of all of this was that Praise and glory and honor be to our Savior Jesus Christ!”
QUOTES:
David Powlison - “Only Jesus the Messiah can fix what has gone wrong in us and around us… before we get tangled psychologically and socially, we have a relational problem with God. So the mercies of God come through a Person (Jesus), who comes in person to restore peace. He alone touches deep enough to untangle the roots of everything else that troubles us.”
APPLICATION:
So we ask the same question: Q. What are the implications of this in counseling? How do these glorious truths function in biblical counseling?
1. Biblical counseling is ultimately about the glory of Christ. Our hearts break with the brokenhearted. We grieve in hospital rooms with the grieving. Gather with them at the graveside. We lament with sinners. We correct, rebuke, admonish, restore gently… In God’s great kindness our trials will one day be relieved. What a JOY! And He did it! And all of the glory belongs to Him.
2. Biblical counseling leads toward a greater love for Christ. The Gospel begins to function in their love for Christ as they grow in their knowledge that God loved them first. We revisit God's initiative in their salvation, based on His love. Trials and discipline come by the loving hand of God. He will grow their affections for Christ! The world will point us toward self-love. The gospel points us toward the life giving reasons that grow our love for Jesus.
3. Biblical counseling aims to help us grow in our faith in Christ. We believe in Christ at salvation. We need help to grow our faith in Christ. We will look back at redemption. We look forward to our glorification in heaven. The good news is good news today! We can say “I believe in you, Jesus!” Yet know that we want to believe HIM right now, today, in the midst of it all. Do we not need that? Do we not want that?
4. Biblical counseling offers a growing hope for our JOY in Christ. We cannot manufacture joy. Sometimes THIS WILL TAKE TIME. We need the reasons for Joy in Christ. We need the truths of the gospel in the very recesses of our hearts. Gospel at work on our heart ignites affection for Jesus. In light of the gospel, we should be the most joyful people in world! Yet we constantly struggle and fight for joy. This is one of our deepest longings.
To the Unbeliever: All I have for you this morning is all that you need! You need the living hope found only in Jesus Christ!
To the Christian: In the end, no matter what happened to you in years past…no matter what you are going through right now…no matter what may come tomorrow… The good news of Jesus has the power to lead you through it all! The Love of Jesus has the power to grow your love for Him! The Faithfulness of Jesus has the power to grow your faith in Him! Living and lasting hope in Jesus is yours.
SCRIPTURE MEMORIZATION:
Romans 8 (entire chapter)
SONGS FROM THIS SUNDAY:
Because He Lives
O My Soul Arise
King Of Love
Christ Our Hope In Life And Death
Christ Is Mine Forevermore
NEXT WEEK’S PASSAGE:
Romans 9:30-10:4
THE BOOK OF THE QUARTER:
Chosen For Life: The case for divine election
by Sam Storms