The Center of the Universe: You, kind of...

About a year ago, John Piper received a sort of exhortation from a woman in his church whom he really respected and which he heeded. He talks about it here. The crux of the matter is that in all of his (right) emphasis on God being the main point, he unintentionally downplays how God feels about us. One way he often puts it is this: do you feel most loved when God makes much of you, or when you are allowed by God to make much of him? This is a good distinction, especially as ballast in our boats as we sail through the frothy seas of our culture's "self-esteem" talk (though my sense is that the current of the self-esteem movement from the 80s and 90s is ebbing and being replaced with other currents to achieve self-actualization). But the question still lingers a bit--God is gospel and therefore our chief hope in heaven ought to be union with him and not merely the absence of pain, reunion with loved ones, etc; however, how do we experience some of God's massive affection for us and do so joyfully in a way that doesn't ultimately make much of us? Or to put it yet another way, how do we seek God in a way that sees him as an end and not as a means to other ends for which we might seek him?


I don't exactly know the answer, but this post (thanks RP) by Kevin DeYoung points to a biblical way to think a little more about it:

Do not think that salvation comes to sinners because God has a cosmic purpose for the universe and individual sinners happen to be a part of that universe. The movement of salvation is not from everything to individuals, but from individuals to everything. Don’t mistake regeneration, redemption, and adoption as byproducts of the larger work God is doing to restore creation. That logic is backwards. Biblically, it’s the renewal of all things that rides in on the coattails of the salvation of sinners. “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:19-21). The creation is waiting to experience the freedom and glory we already experience as the children of God. The next time you are tempted to feel sorry for yourself, or feel unappreciated, or imagine yourself ignored by God, remember: In Christ, you have what the universe is after.