So what is the difference between someone who willfully indulges in sexual pleasures while ignoring the Bible on moral purity and someone who willfully indulges in the selfish pursuit of more and more material possessions while ignoring the Bible on caring for the poor? The difference is that one involves a social taboo in the church and the other involves the social norm in the church.
Interpretation
This quote discusses the moral differences in indulging in sexual pleasures versus materialism, highlighting societal perceptions of both actions.
David Platt draws a comparison between two types of indulgence: one in sexual pleasures, which is often stigmatized within the church, and the other in material possessions, which is more accepted despite both actions being contrary to biblical teachings. He suggests that the core issue lies not in the morality of the act itself, but in how society deems one acceptable and the other taboo, thus prompting a deeper reflection on genuine moral values and societal norms.
In practice
Discussing moral values during a church sermon.
The price is certainly high for people who don’t know Christ and who live in a world where Christians shrink back from self-denying faith and settle into self-indulging faith. While Christians choose to spend their lives fulfilling the American dream instead of giving their lives to proclaiming the kingdom of God, literally billions in need of the Gospel remain in the dark
What if the very reason we have breath is because we have been saved for a global mission? And what if anything less than passionate involvement in global mission is actually selling God short by frustrating the very purpose for which he created us?
A high view of God’s sovereignty fuels death-defying devotion to global missions. Maybe another way to put it, people, and more specifically pastors, who believe that God’s sovereign over all things will lead Christians to die for the sake of all peoples.
[...]there is no injustice in God. The injustice lies in Christians who possess the gospel and refuse to give their lives to making it known among those who haven't heard.
God involves us in his missions not because He needs us, but because He loves us. And in His mercy He has invited us to be involved in His sovereign design for the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth.
Somewhere along the way we have subtly and tragically taken the costly command of Christ to go, baptize, and teach all nations and mutated it into a comfortable call for Christians to come, be baptized, and listen in one location.
But now that I am old, moving every year closer to the end of my life, I also feel closer to the beginning. And I remember everything that happened that day becasue it has happened many times in my life. The same innocence, trust, and restlessness; the wonder, fear, and lonliness. How I lost myself. I remember all these things. And tonight, on the fifteenth day of the eighth moon, I also remember what I asked the Moon Lady so long ago. I wished to be found.
Savages we call them because their manners differ from ours.
Not that our salvation should be the effect of our work, but our work should be the evidence of our salvation.
Where perception is, there also are pain and pleasure, and where these are, there, of necessity, is desire.
Every crime destroys more Edens than our own
A man sooner or later discovers that he is the master-gardener of his soul, the director of his life.
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