The Message of Christianity

I saw this quote a while back and thought to myself it was a reminder desperately needed:


“We live in a church culture that has a dangerous tendency to disconnect the grace of God from the glory of God. Our heart resonates with the idea of enjoying God’s grace. We bask in sermons, conferences and books that exalt a grace centering on us. And while the wonder of grace is worthy of our attention, if that grace is disconnected from its purpose, the sad result is a self-centered Christianity that bypasses the heart of God.

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 Christiantiy 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...

The message of biblical Christianity is not ‘God loves me’, period... The message of biblical Christianity is that ‘God loves me so that I might make Him – His ways, His salvation, His glory and His greatness – known among all nations.’

We are not the end of the gospel, God is.”  (some emphasis added)

~ David Platt, Radical