While the goal of the American dream is to make much of us, the goal of the gospel is to make much of God.
Interpretation
The quote contrasts the pursuit of personal success with the purpose of glorifying a higher power.
David Platt highlights a fundamental difference between the American dream, which often emphasizes individual achievement and prosperity, and the gospel of Christianity, which prioritizes the glorification of God. This statement invites reflection on the motivations that drive people's lives, suggesting that true fulfillment comes not from personal ambition, but from a life dedicated to honoring and serving God.
In practice
In a sermon highlighting the importance of spiritual priorities over worldly success.
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.
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.
I believe that very much of current Arminianism is simply ignorance of gospel doctrine; and if people began to study their Bibles, and to take the Word of God as they find it, they must inevitably, if believers, rise up to rejoice in the doctrines of grace.
The fact that a great many people believe something is no guarantee of its truth.
I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence.
Why are we designed to see the world as supremely beautiful just as we're about to be snuffed? Do rabbits feel the same as the fox teeth bite down on their necks? Is it mercy?
The will is not free - it is a phenomenon bound by cause and effect - but there is something behind the will which is free.
The True One was there from time immemorial. _x000D_ He is there today and ever there you will find. _x000D_ He never died nor will he ever die. ... _x000D_ Look within, you will see Him there enshrined.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.