The Duty of Delight: Is Joy in Jesus a Christian Obligation?

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:00:00] So last night we tried to argue that saving faith is the awakening, the coming to life of the enjoyment of Jesus and if that's true then since saving faith is a obligation for all human beings therefore the enjoyment of
[00:00:29] Jesus would be an obligation, a duty, a requirement. A lot of people stumble over that claim that to enjoy Jesus is required of us it's an obligation so I'm posing the question in this message is that a biblical way to think should you
[00:00:54] even think about okay when I get up tomorrow morning one of the thing God things God requires of me is that I enjoy him that day it is a requirement that feels very strange to a lot of people so that's my question this
[00:01:15] evening and I invite you to turn with me to Psalm 16 11 a well-known text around here right at the heart of what we do at Desiring God and Bethlehem College and Seminary so let me read just this one verse on our way to give six reasons for
[00:01:39] why it is biblical to make the pursuit of the enjoyment of God the vocation of your life the calling an obligation a very high priority not something peripheral but something essential you God this is verse 11 Psalm 16 you make
[00:02:08] known to me the path of life in your presence there is fullness of joy and in your right hand our pleasures forevermore so father as we look at this verse and then broaden out our sight to the rest of the Bible would you come and
[00:02:28] get glory while we get the joy and I pray that in this room those who find it foreign or alien to their life that the enjoyment of Jesus would be paramount would be saved that you would bring saving faith into their lives and thus
[00:02:50] awaken the enjoyment of Jesus I ask for this miracle in Jesus name Amen so seven brief observations about this verse number one there is a path that leads to the presence of God you may known to me the path of life there's a
[00:03:13] path of life get on it right are you on it that would be the question that the Holy Spirit would be pressing on you if you were meditating on this verse am I on that path number two God is the one who makes the path known you make known
[00:03:30] to me the path of life so he directs us to it he puts us on it number three that path leads to fullness of joy not 99% proof joy but 100% proof joy if the
[00:03:48] world offers me 98% joy and God offers me a hundred percent I'm not taking the world that would be stupid right most people are stupid I mean it's really insane it's it's suicidal and it's insane if God offers you full joy for
[00:04:08] you to take anything less is self-destructive fourth this path leads to joy forever so not just full but forever so I'm not interested in the offer of 80 years of joy and then hell I'm not interested in the offer of 80
[00:04:33] million years of joy no thank you I want joy forever which is why I love I love to commend Christianity.
[00:04:44] I love to preach and say, come on, be a Christian.
[00:04:47] You cannot improve upon this offer.
[00:04:50] There's nothing fuller than full.
[00:04:51] There's nothing longer than forever.
[00:04:53] Why would you not come?
[00:04:58] Number five, this promise to have full and forever joy is in Christ.
[00:05:07] Now, that's not in the verse.
[00:05:09] However, we're Christians.
[00:05:12] What we know is that as the Old Testament redemptive history unfolds, it comes to its fullness in Jesus as he comes into the world and is the Messiah and thus the fulfillment of the Old Testament.
[00:05:27] So you read a verse like this, 2 Corinthians 1.20.
[00:05:31] All the promises of God find their yes in Jesus.
[00:05:36] So this promise, 16.11, in my presence, God says, is fullness of joy, pleasures forevermore Jesus comes and purchases it for sinners the only reason anybody could enjoy this in the Old Testament is because Jesus was going to
[00:05:50] shed his blood for sinners so it's not artificial to say this verse was purchased for us by Jesus so if you are in Christ tonight it's yours you don't have to say oh but that was made as a promise to Israel it's not made to
[00:06:06] to gentiles like me yes it is because you are in the messiah he is the jew and now everything promised to israel is yours in messiah jesus number six the full and lasting joy is in god's
[00:06:21] presence it's nowhere else to be found he is not holding this out as one among many options like oh you can find full and lasting joy in my presence and you can find full and lasting joy
[00:06:31] elsewhere. That's not what the verse means. The verse means if you're going to have full joy and forever joy, it will be from God in God's presence. And therefore, number seven, it's an obligation. That's where we're going. It's an obligation. He's not pointing you to
[00:06:50] this path to say, you don't have to do this. And there are other ways to life. There are other paths to life there aren't there's one path to life one path to joy one path to
[00:07:04] God and Jesus is saying God is saying get on it get on it it's it's one of the happiest obligations you will ever have I mean it is the happiest obligation you will ever have it's a duty it's a requirement get on the path that leads
[00:07:23] to your full and forever joy now it might be gratuitous to ask why do why have I given the last 55 years of my life to thinking about that reality that obligation and written book after book about it and and grow up a school and a
[00:07:45] ministry around it what why have you given yourself to this I mean couldn't it be that this thing that you call enjoying Jesus or Christian hedonism is just a warmed-over form of prosperity gospel kind of prosperity light that
[00:08:09] horrible stuff that we have exported around the world by American Christianity maybe it's just that or maybe it's just a disguised form of pop psychology fitting right in with the American me ism and of course people are
[00:08:28] gonna like to hear this because we're all into ourselves and Piper's going around the country say and indulge yourself on full and forever joy how easy does that fit into sin or maybe it's just true but it's marginal and
[00:08:49] Piper treats it as central now I don't think any of those three is true or I wouldn't be here so let me give four reasons before I even give you my six reasons six reasons for why it's an obligation but four reasons why I care
[00:09:09] like why did we accept this invitation we got things to do right I'm old I'm trying to finish some projects and I keep interrupting them to do things like like this why did what why did I do this and I have four reasons and they're big
[00:09:26] they're a big deal you will see that very quickly number one it has this enjoying Jesus this church with that tagline enjoying Jesus the pursuit the obligation of full and forever joy in God's presence has everything to do with
[00:09:44] suffering and every person in this room will suffer no exceptions I know that not because of life which is enough to teach me but because of the Bible through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God acts 14 22 whoever
[00:10:02] would live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted 2nd Timothy 3 12 if anyone would come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross which is a place to suffer and die Matthew 16 we are fellow heirs with Christ provided we
[00:10:19] suffer with him in order that we may be glorified with him you're gonna suffer christian this issue of enjoying jesus has everything to do with doing that well if you don't get this you won't suffer
[00:10:36] well that's number one i care about your suffering and therefore i care about making plain what enjoyment of jesus is and isn't number two why do i care it has everything to do with loving other
[00:10:55] people the bible says if you love your neighbor you have fulfilled the whole law that's a big deal right that's huge you can fulfill the whole law how by loving people love your neighbor as
[00:11:08] yourself has you have fulfilled the whole law romans 13 10. how is that well what's more loving I mean, can anything be more loving than to lay down your life in order to bring other people
[00:11:25] into full and forever joy? There isn't any greater love than to bring people into full and forever joy at the cost of your life. You can't give what you don't have. It's a fake. You're just a fake
[00:11:45] if you think you're giving what you don't have, and therefore, if you are indifferent to enjoying Jesus, you can't love people. Now, I'm coming back to that, so I'll leave it right there.
[00:11:57] That's a big deal to me. I would like this church to love people better. I would like to love people better. You can't love people better if you don't enjoy Jesus. Number three, it has everything to do
[00:12:15] the glory of god the glory of god is the greatest reality in the universe god is the greatest reality in the universe his glory is the outshining of himself and it is impossible that you make god
[00:12:34] look glorious if you desire other things more than god you cannot do it and therefore the enjoyment of jesus is essential to glorifying god we'll come back to that one as well you see how
[00:12:50] massive this is for me suffering love god glory this is huge we're not talking about marginal things in this conference this church is not about marginal things like let's have a cute little tagline what would work in midlothian well maybe enjoying jesus that's just a lot of baloney
[00:13:14] this is as deep and as central as glorious as it gets that's why I'm here I don't like marginal stuff number four it has everything to do with your identity as a human being now this is this has come to the front for me
[00:13:35] because of artificial intelligence if you say five years ago were asked what's what's right at the core of being in the image of God if you had said it's the capacity to reason almost everybody was to be there that's an important part of
[00:13:56] it the capacity to reason God is a rational being and he has made us in his image and we are rational beings and then you wake up one morning and machines can think better than you and talk better than you and they can they
[00:14:13] can they can out think you and out speak you now what becomes of your humanity that's not the essence of who you are the essence of who you are is the spiritual capacity of your soul to see and savor the glory of Jesus I push no
[00:14:40] machine will ever see and savor enjoy be passionate about Jesus it won't ever happen it will think it will not feel it will say I feel program it to say anything it won't feel I mean this has just been huge for me recently as I've
[00:15:06] seen how what we've given our lives to for the last 50 years is so pointedly relevant and so essential for the very nature of human being okay so no it's not prosperity gospel no it's not a bit of pop psychology it's it's everything
[00:15:30] it's my life it's your life okay now we go to the six reasons this the six reasons for why your pursuit of the enjoyment of Jesus full and forever is is an obligation a very very happy obligation number one it's commanded it's commanded
[00:16:04] in the bible you heard this if you were in marshall's seminar today psalm 37 4 delight yourself in the lord is not a suggestion it's a command psalm 32 verse 1 be glad in the
[00:16:21] Lord and rejoice you righteous ones shout for joy all you are who are upright in heart that's a command Psalm 67 verse 4 let the nations be glad and sing for joy for you will judge the peoples
[00:16:36] with uprightness and guide the nations on the earth isn't it wonderful that world missions means going to tell the nations to be happy it's just wonderful it may cost you your life I mean I do funerals for missionaries.
[00:16:52] I know this will cost you your life.
[00:16:54] I promise my people there will be martyrs in this church.
[00:16:58] Come on, let's do this.
[00:17:01] The Great Commission won't be finished without blood.
[00:17:03] It says so in Revelation.
[00:17:06] The martyrs are up there waiting, and Jesus says, the full number of the martyrs isn't in yet.
[00:17:10] I can't end history.
[00:17:12] This is serious business, but what we're doing is saying, let the nations be glad.
[00:17:18] We're telling the best news in the world.
[00:17:21] Psalm 100, make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth.
[00:17:25] Serve the Lord with gladness.
[00:17:28] It's a command.
[00:17:30] Now, that's argument number one, it's a command.
[00:17:33] And there are two objections, two objections to it.
[00:17:39] And these objections are right out of my history.
[00:17:42] The first objection is, I was on a panel with Elizabeth Elliot.
[00:17:47] Elizabeth Elliot was, is one of my heroes.
[00:17:52] I liked her, I liked just about everything about her.
[00:17:54] She was blunt, she was straightforward, she was in your face, I just, I thought she was the coolest lady.
[00:18:03] And now Johnny Erickson Tada has kind of taken her place.
[00:18:06] So I get these two women in my life that, besides my wife, that are just awesomely inspiring to me.
[00:18:12] Okay women, here's what she said, gonna have to correct Elizabeth Elliot.
[00:18:17] So I'm on this panel with her.
[00:18:19] She's 20 years older than I am.
[00:18:21] I checked that out this afternoon.
[00:18:23] Born in 26.
[00:18:26] She's in heaven with Jesus.
[00:18:28] Got this all straightened out now.
[00:18:34] And she said flat out in front of 2,000 people, "'John, I don't think you should tell people to pursue joy.
[00:18:42] "'I think you should tell people to pursue obedience.'" And I've heard this before, so this did not catch me off guard, right?
[00:18:54] And I said, I didn't call, I probably did not call her Elizabeth because I was in my 40s probably and she was in her 60s and I don't call women in their 60s by their first name
[00:19:06] when I'm 40, I do now.
[00:19:13] I said, that's like saying don't tell people to eat apples, tell them to eat fruit.
[00:19:26] You get that?
[00:19:28] because obedience means doing what you're told.
[00:19:33] And what we're told is to be glad in God, right?
[00:19:39] It's a command.
[00:19:41] You can't play obedience off of an obedient act.
[00:19:46] It won't work.
[00:19:48] So I think I won that argument.
[00:19:53] I wouldn't change anything about her.
[00:19:56] She's going around the country telling people to die for Jesus.
[00:19:59] That's the name of her biography of Amy Carmichael, right?
[00:20:02] Anybody know the name of her biography?
[00:20:04] A Chance to Die.
[00:20:06] I love this.
[00:20:07] So I'm not asking her to change her language, but I'm telling her you can't make me change mine either because it's biblical.
[00:20:15] Yours is biblical, mine's biblical.
[00:20:18] That's objection number one.
[00:20:20] It is not fair to say to Piper, you should tell people to obey God instead of enjoy God, because enjoying God is obedient to the command to enjoy God.
[00:20:33] Okay, objection number two.
[00:20:35] Here I am a sophomore, no, I'm a junior in college and I took a class on apologetics from Millard Erickson.
[00:20:45] And he had us read a bad book and he knew it was a bad book because that's how he did apologetics, named Situation Ethics by Joseph Fletcher.
[00:20:55] And in the book, now here's one of the great advantages growing up in a church and in a home where it's all Bible saturated you develop a good sniffer right you you can't explain what's wrong but you
[00:21:07] smell it it's wrong something's wrong and so I'm reading this book and here's the argument love for people cannot involve the emotions because it's commanded and you can't command the emotions and I smell it some's wrong
[00:21:31] with that I've never heard anybody argue like that I said that does smell right to me now you know why that doesn't smell right to me because emotions are commanded all over the Bible he come on Joseph Fletcher read the Bible and you
[00:21:49] I just want to pause here and say all you people who don't have PhDs in theology you got noses and if you if you grew up with the aroma of the gospel and and the aroma of an inspired Bible,
[00:22:05] you're gonna be guided by that good sniffer all through life and all these liberal PhDs are gonna try to tell you things and say, that doesn't work in the Bible.
[00:22:17] That's just wonderful.
[00:22:18] So just keep reading your Bibles and you'll be on the path.
[00:22:23] So what's the answer to that?
[00:22:25] The answer is desires are commanded.
[00:22:28] First Peter 2.2, like newborn babies, desire the pure spiritual milk contentment is commanded uh hebrews 13 be content with what you have hope is commanded hope in god psalm 42 fear is commanded fear the one who can throw soul and
[00:22:48] body into hell luke 12 zeal is commanded well i got a list of 25 things that are commanded here that's enough you god can command you to do whatever you ought to do whether you can do it
[00:23:00] not that's a certain theology and it's true if you ought to delight in God and you find that you can't you still ought to and God has every right to tell you to do what you ought to do and you just need to be born again you got to have a
[00:23:20] new heart that's what's scary about Christianity we can't control it God has to save people we can't save people okay that's argument number one it's commanded argument number two for why it is biblical to treat the enjoyment of
[00:23:36] Jesus as an obligation it is the meaning of conversion now we saw this last night so I'll be light on this and take you just one new text here's Matthew 13 44 I love this one verse parable the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure
[00:23:51] Matthew 13 44 the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field which a man found and covered up and then from his joy he goes and sells everything he has and buys that field what is that that's that's the end of the parable one
[00:24:12] verse parable what's the point of it the point of it is that becoming a Christian coming into the kingdom of God is the discovery of a treasure that's what I meant last night when I said saving faith is the awakening of the enjoyment
[00:24:29] Jesus so you stub your toe by grace on a chest hidden in a field you reach down you open the chest it is full of gold millions and millions of dollars worth of gold the rules in the day are you own the fields you own the treasure I gotta
[00:24:48] buy this field and you sell everything you have and the catchphrase is from joy he goes and sells everything he has and the people at the pawn shop must have thought he was crazy because he's selling his computer and above all
[00:25:07] things he's selling his books he's selling his books and and nobody understands why he's so happy to let go of all this world stuff and the answer he's found Jesus, the King.
[00:25:26] So what is the enjoyment of Jesus?
[00:25:31] It is conversion.
[00:25:34] When you're converted, you find a treasure.
[00:25:36] When you find a treasure with joy, you sell everything you have, or you're willing to sell everything you have.
[00:25:42] You hold loosely everything in Midlothian, or wherever you live, you hold it loosely.
[00:25:48] That's why you're willing to die and do hard things for Jesus because you have the greatest treasure in the world and it lasts forever, full and forever.
[00:25:58] So that's argument number two.
[00:26:00] It's an obligation because it's what it means to be saved.
[00:26:04] It's what it means to be converted.
[00:26:05] The discovery of the treasure of Jesus.
[00:26:09] Number three, it's a duty to pursue your enjoyment of Jesus because the teaching of self-denial is based on it, not contradictory to it. It's amazing how many people throw up the doctrine of self-denial as a problem for me, as a problem for Christian hedonism, as a problem for pursuing the enjoyment
[00:26:40] of Jesus. How can you go around the country telling people to indulge themselves on God as completely satisfying forever when the Bible says, Jesus says, if you're going to be a disciple, you've got to deny yourself.
[00:26:58] How can you do that?
[00:27:05] My response is to say, look, nowhere does the Bible command ultimate self-denial.
[00:27:16] And if it did, it would be blasphemy, for example.
[00:27:24] So here you are at heaven's gate.
[00:27:27] End of your life, you've died.
[00:27:29] and you're knocking on the door and Jesus comes to open the door.
[00:27:36] And there's a big smile on his face because you're a Christian, you trust Jesus.
[00:27:41] And a big smile on his face and he says, welcome into my presence where there's fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore.
[00:27:53] And you say, no, no, no, no, no, no.
[00:27:55] We've been taught that the essence of Christianity self-denial and we are not about to break that rule and start indulging our enjoyments that's blasphemy that's a slap in his face now is that biblical what I just said I mean that's clever but is it biblical so here's here's the
[00:28:21] key phrase everybody knows where this is coming from it's coming from mark 834 if anyone would come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross it doesn't getting more horrible than that the cross was an absolutely horrible horrible horrible experience
[00:28:38] it's not a gold thing hanging around your neck it is a place of torture and misery drawn out as far as it can so take up your cross deny yourself and follow me so there's that there's
[00:28:57] there's no doubt self-denial is a reality in the Christian life okay it's right there we must deny ourselves now the question is deny ourselves what in order to what and here's the next verse because starts with for for means
[00:29:24] because for or because whoever would save his life will lose it pause you don't lose your life that's the assumption right if you would try to save your life you're gonna lose your life you don't want to lose your life so
[00:29:43] be sure to lose your life that's the argument next phrase but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save it you want to save your life that's the argument jesus is assuming the pursuit of joy he's assuming it he's not contradicting it he's building his
[00:30:08] whole argument on it if you want to save your life lose your life if you want to lose your life spend your whole life trying to save your life so you just have to think now what in the
[00:30:21] world does that mean what does that mean and it means that you have found a treasure in a field and you're willing to sell everything to have it that's self-denial he sold everything and he left the country and he spent 40 years in india that's
[00:30:41] that's the pursuit of maximum pleasure by denying himself everything in order to have that that's the argument ultimate self-denial is blasphemy and ultimate gratification in god is worship we always deny our ourselves lesser things to have greater things i don't know if
[00:31:09] you know the author of uh alice shrugged ayn rand the russian philosophical atheist who wrote this book that just captures a lot of people and i read i wrote her a letter a long letter while
[00:31:24] she was still living to see if i could do anything because she rejected christianity outright because she thought that christianity taught denial of greater things for lesser things that's what she said i hate altruism she said i hate christianity it teaches altruism
[00:31:46] meaning you lay down your best in order to embrace the worst and i just i wrote her a long argument said that is not what it teaches gave her my best christian hedonist arguments because she was
[00:32:00] trying to be a hedonist and she didn't know how because you leave god out of the picture which she did you cannot make sense out of the bible or christian reality okay that's argument number
[00:32:13] three the doctrine of self-denial is there it's real it's required it's just not ultimate we deny ourselves temporary inadequate insufficient pleasures in order to have god and his fullest possible and longest joy that's number three number four the reason
[00:32:47] that the enjoyment of Jesus is essential and obligatory is because the opposite of it is the definition of evil. If you reject the pursuit of enjoyment of Jesus as the goal of your life, you will become an evil person. Here's the key text from which I get that.
[00:33:23] this is Jeremiah 2 12 be appalled o heavens at this be shocked be utterly desolate because declares the Lord for my people have committed two evils so what is evil in this verse like my people have committed two evils Jeremiah
[00:33:47] 2 13 they have forsaken me the fountain of living water too they have hewn out dug out for themselves cisterns broken cisterns that can hold no water so what is evil i think this is the essence of
[00:34:12] all evil. This is the evil of evil. The evil of evils is to taste God, sample God, and turn away and say, yuck. Hell is not an overreaction to that indignity. Yuck. And then you add
[00:34:44] to the yuck by turning to the desert floor and digging and digging and getting your tongue down there and covered with sand and calling it, oh, that's good. It's insane. It's a great evil.
[00:35:06] It's a great evil. Most of the world doesn't have a clue what evil is. They think evil is treating other people badly. That's a spinoff. The great evil is looking God in the face and saying,
[00:35:22] you are very unattractive and I'm not interested. I've got other things that satisfy me. Thank you very much. And I've got people I love with all my heart that are doing that. Don't be one of them
[00:35:39] and pleading with you on behalf of your parents or your kids. Don't be insane. Don't be evil.
[00:35:51] that's number number four the the opposite of pursuing your joy in Jesus is to fall into the evil of all evils number five there are six of these who are almost done you can't love other people the way the Bible says to love
[00:36:16] other people if you're not pursuing your enjoyment in Jesus can't and the key text for me this has been a very very impactful text for me is second Corinthians 8 1 & 2 which goes like this Paul is talking to the Corinthians who
[00:36:43] live in achaia the lower part of greece about the corinthians the the macedonians who live in the northern part and he's using the macedonians as an illustration for how the corinthians ought to act okay that's what's going on we want you to know brothers about the grace of god that has been
[00:37:04] given in the churches of macedonia that's thessalonica philippi the grace of god that has been given in the churches of Macedonia because in a severe test of affliction their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in
[00:37:24] a wealth of generosity on their part and then later on in verse 8 he calls that overflow of generosity love so my question is where does love come from in this text how did love come about how did it happen that these macedonians were suddenly
[00:37:44] eager to help the poor in jerusalem they didn't even know these people and they're asking for a second offering to be taken that's what it actually says in the next verse they're begging for the privilege to participate in another offering for the poor what is going on and you
[00:38:02] know that it is not some um it's not owing to the fact that they were suddenly prosperous they weren't prosperous it says that they were in extreme poverty verse two extreme poverty what about security and comfort had they come into some new security and comfort no they hadn't they
[00:38:27] were in much affliction a severe test of affliction so you've got a brand new set of believers who are still in poverty and they're still in affliction or probably greater affliction and it says their abundance of joy is overflowing in generosity i just want to be that
[00:38:51] i want to be that i want to go places and speak so that when i'm done that happens because i think the world looks on us and if that if they don't see something like that happening they would say
[00:39:04] I said, how are these folks different than me?
[00:39:11] So why were they happy?
[00:39:14] They weren't happy because they had just gotten rich.
[00:39:16] They weren't happy because they had just escaped affliction.
[00:39:19] More affliction, still poverty, and they're so super happy that the happiness is overflowing in love.
[00:39:26] Why?
[00:39:27] What were they happy about?
[00:39:29] And the only clue we have is verse one.
[00:39:31] I want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia.
[00:39:38] Paul had walked into Philippi and walked into Thessalonica, he had preached the gospel, and the Holy Spirit had opened the hearts, like Lydia, he opened the hearts of the people, and they had seen, you mean for nothing that we do,
[00:39:56] our sins can be forgiven?
[00:39:58] And the wrath of God can be turned away?
[00:40:01] And the creator of the universe can become our friend?
[00:40:05] And we can be adopted into his family?
[00:40:07] and we can live forever in full and forever joy with him.
[00:40:11] Are you kidding me?
[00:40:12] And that was just staggeringly good news.
[00:40:15] Oh, that we could stay in love with the good news.
[00:40:19] It just staggered them that this was true.
[00:40:22] What else could possibly matter if that were true?
[00:40:25] I'm living forever as a child of God.
[00:40:28] What else matters?
[00:40:31] And they just gave everything.
[00:40:32] Like, come on, let me show how I'm not in bondage to stuff.
[00:40:41] So I argue you can't love people as you ought unless that happens.
[00:40:48] Not according to this text.
[00:40:50] Joy in God and his grace is what becomes abundant like a fountain, then overflows.
[00:40:58] So my definition of love on the basis of these two verses is love is the overflow of joy in God meets the needs of others love is the overflow of joy in God that meets the
[00:41:11] needs of others and if you don't pursue your joy in God you're not going to be able to pursue love argument number six and lastly and this is the most important it is our duty to pursue full and lasting pleasure in Jesus because
[00:41:29] without it you cannot glorify God you cannot glorify God what is man's chief in westminster catechism the chief end of man is to glorify god and enjoy him forever and what we have done at desiring god what i've done for 50 plus years is to say actually the word and there
[00:41:52] is most fully understood by using the word by what is the chief end of man the chief end man is to glorify god by enjoying him forever and then you start looking in the bible you start looking in
[00:42:08] church history and you find it everywhere i'll give you one text so here's paul this was the text with which i came to my church in 1980 so so desirous that this would come true he said
[00:42:23] it is my eager expectation and hope that was mine i hope it's yours tonight it is my eager expectation and hope that i will not at all be ashamed but that with full courage now as always, Christ would be magnified, or you could say glorified, in my body,
[00:42:46] whether by life or by death, for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. And I remember looking at that argument and thinking, how does that work? Christ is magnified in my body
[00:43:01] as I die because for me to die is gain that doesn't work yet there's a premise missing in the argument I met a lady last night I hope she's here because I want to thank her out loud who said I like your preaching because it's
[00:43:27] mathematical bless you wherever you are so I got on the phone last night my wife I said, I met this wonderful lady who likes my preaching because it's like math.
[00:43:43] And my wife said, of course it's like math.
[00:43:45] It's like premises and conclusions.
[00:43:49] So here we got an argument and there's a missing premise.
[00:43:55] All of you excited about that?
[00:44:02] What's the missing premise?
[00:44:05] Christ will be made to look magnificent by the way I die because when I die, I experience death as gain.
[00:44:16] Something's missing.
[00:44:18] What's missing is verse 23, where supplies, to depart from the body is to be with the Lord.
[00:44:30] The gain is Christ.
[00:44:32] That's verse 23, that's the missing piece.
[00:44:35] So now you can finish the argument and see how it relates to the glory of Christ or the glory of God.
[00:44:44] I want Christ to be magnified in my life, in my body, whether by life or by death.
[00:44:50] So it's going to be, he's going to look great in my death if I experience death as gain and he's the gain.
[00:44:59] Now, can you put all that together?
[00:45:02] A good mathematician could.
[00:45:04] I mean, an ordinary human could because you have brains in spite of the fact that they're not the essential thing of your humanity.
[00:45:11] The key is Christ is most magnified in us when we are most satisfied in him, especially when we're dying.
[00:45:24] right your kids gather around the hospital bed daddy's dying I fully expect this is gonna happen I mean I might go out real sudden so it can't happen but this is probably the way it's gonna happen you're in the hospital bed
[00:45:42] I got five kids you got spouses sixteen grandkids they're all gathered around what's it gonna be like if I turn on Jesus at that moment if Jesus is not present real and precious and satisfying at that moment it's going to make him
[00:46:02] look real bad and two of those boys need to see it look good get it if you're gonna glorify Jesus you gotta desire Jesus above all things God is made to look most glorious when we desire him above all things okay those are my six
[00:46:24] arguments for why you cannot treat the enjoyment of Jesus as something peripheral marginal non-essential is very essential God you made known to me the path of life in your presence is fullness of joy at your right hand are
[00:46:41] pleasures for ever more and I would just look out upon you even though it's dark and I can't see faces real clearly you can see mine it's real big over there probably. And I just want to close by saying, if that's not the way you experienced Jesus or the
[00:47:01] way you experienced God as the fullness of joy, the forever joy, that verse from Psalm 16 is an invitation to you. I call it an obligation, but it's such a happy obligation. And God is saying
[00:47:16] to you tonight my arms are wide to you I love being enjoyed that's the way I get glory is if people enjoy me so I'm inviting you come enjoy me it's free my son covered all your sins my son provided a way into my favor I'll adopt
[00:47:37] you into my family you will live me forever you will be as happy as you can possibly be you will never be bored forever and ever that's why I have given you my book that's why I sent John Piper down to Midlothian