The Gospel is about God, not Us: Part 2

I can't resist sharing another awesome passage from Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream by David Platt.

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"If you were to ask the average Christian sitting in a worship service on Sunday morning to summarize the message of Christianity, you would most likely hear something along the lines of "The message of Christianity is that God loves me." Or someone might say, "The message of Christianity is that God loves me enough to send his Son, Jesus, to die for me."

As wonderful as this sentiment sounds, is it biblical? Isn't it incomplete, based on what we have seen in the Bible? "God loves me" is not the essence of biblical Christianity. Because if "God loves me" is the message of Christianity, then who is the object of Christianity?

God loves me. Me. Christianity's object is me.

Therefore, when I look for a church, I look for the music that best fits me and the programs that best cater to me and my family. When I make plans for my life and career, it is about what works best for me and my family. When I consider the house I will live in, the car I will drive, the clothes I will wear, the way I will live, I will choose according to what is best for me. This is the version of Christianity that largely prevails in our culture.

But it is not biblical Christianity.

The message of biblical Christianity is not "God loves me, period", as if we were the object of our own faith. The message of biblical Christianity is "God loves me so that I might make him -- his ways, his salvation, his glory and his greatness -- known among all nations." Now God is the object of our faith, and Christianity centers around him. We are not the end of the gospel; God is."

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The truth is that God loves us unbelievably. He created us in His image, rescued us after our betrayal of Him, lives in us and will one day spend eternity with us. But we are not the end of God's plan. The end of God's purpose in the world is God, and the supreme glory of His grace, which we have been graciously given our lives to find joy in, proclaim and treasure more than anything else.

May the Lord extend his grace on us as we seek to do so, resting in Jesus and what He has done for us.