‘How God Made Me Happy in Him’: John Piper’s Journey to Joy

I I call what I said this morning Christian hedonism Christian hedonism some people pronounce it heaven ISM now I know that the word hedonism has a very negative connotation for most people which it probably should because it refers to things like worldliness sensuality selfishness egotism and I don't mean any of those things when I use the word when I pert Christian on the front of it I want it to be transformed so years and years ago when I was considering do I want to call this message Christian hedonism I looked up the word hedonism in

my high school dictionary basic dictionary and the first definition was a life devoted to pleasure and I thought that's exactly what I mean a life devoted to the pursuit of pleasure that's what I was talking about this morning but of course the world means pleasure in money pleasure in success pleasure in power and when I put the word Christian on the front of it I mean pleasure in God according to Psalm 16:11 in your presence is fullness of joy at your right hand are pleasures forevermore that's what I mean by it so I am an

advocate for what I call Christian hedonism and the reason I am emphasizing it here in this conference is because the theme of the conference I was told in a word would be holiness or Philippians chapter 2 verses 15 where we are to shine like lights in the world and be blameless children of God in a crooked and perverse generation and I thought the only way I know to kill sin in my life is to kill it with the power of a superior pleasure that's my understanding of sanctification it won't do any good just to say

to people stop sinning that won't work the reason I sin the reason you sin is because it feels good to sin nobody sins out of duty nobody gets up in the morning and says it is my obligation to sin today nobody does that the reason we sin is because it's pleasurable it feels good my life will be happier if I sin now how are you good how you gonna conquer that tell people happiness doesn't matter of course it matters it's all over the Bible so the reason I'm talking about it is because this conference is

about holiness it's about being bright and distinct and radical Christian people in a pagan culture like yours and mine and I believe the key is to be so miraculously transformed by God into the kind of people who find more pleasure in God than we do in sin that we get victory over the sin in our let's go back seventy-three years so I was born into a family bill and Ruth Piper my parents my father was an evangelist the mother was a homemaker I have one older sister it was a sweet happy godly Christian home and

I had nothing to do with that isn't that amazing that was total grace I think my father was the happiest man I've ever known which is an amazing statement and my mother was joyfully supportive as he traveled all over the United States preaching the gospel leading people out of darkness into light and I admired my father my whole life he's in heaven today and I never once resented my father's travels he was at home at home maybe one third of my growing up life and the rest of the time he was on the road preaching

and I never resented that and I think probably the reason I didn't resent it is because my mother didn't resent it if my mother had been angry I probably would have been angry my mother loved my father she loved his ministry she supported it with all her heart and so I cannot deny that one of the huge reasons I'm talking about joy 70 years later is because my father was the most joyful man I've ever known and he loved God with all of his heart there was a second impulse in the home so this joy

was pervasive right I mean how can you imagine having parents and you're a child sitting in the backseat of the car and you're going on a vacation and your parents are in the front seat of the car singing to Jesus singing in the car what a privilege so the other emphasis was both my father and my mother would write letters to me while I was in college Seminary graduate school over Germany and the end of their letters they would write very often Johnny never forget whether you eat or whether you drink do all to the

glory of God 1st Corinthians 10:31 well when I left home at age 18 to go to university and study literature these two forces I want to be happy my parents are happy I want to be happy and I want to glorify God because the Bible says I should and I could not at that time put the two together I didn't know how they fit I wasn't sure whether it was completely right to want to be happy I mean happiness was okay if it kind of snuck up on you but should you pursue it as you

wanted and I wasn't sure I knew I should want this one the glory of God I knew I couldn't stop wanting this one you can't stop wanting to be happy you can't God has wired you in this room and it isn't sinful wiring God has wired you to want to be happy that's a good thing so I went off to college and at the end of the university 4 years I still hadn't figured it out but I knew I wanted to I wanted to know this book teach or preach this book so in age 22

I go off to seminary California in Pasadena California and in those 3 years between age 22 in 25 1968 to 1971 my whole world changed my vision of God my understanding of his sovereignty my understanding of joy my understanding of his glory I remember saying to my wife because I got married in 1968 I remember saying to Noel as our lives were being turned upside down by these hint these things I'm going to talk about a minute I said Noel you you know how you can tell that your world and your understanding of God is

being revolutionized by the way you pray I wanted to pray with my wife I've always prayed with my wife I think that's why we're still married every night and praying together every morning we're praying together but oh how differently I was praying in those days I mean hallowed be thy name was not a wasted phrase anymore the number one request of every prayer make your name great make your name great in this world I would be your name so three influences came into my life Daniel fuller CS Lewis Jonathan Edwards Daniel fuller you don't know

him he was a professor of mine CS Lewis you may know the British writer of Christian writer he died on the very same day that John F Kennedy died and Jonathan Edwards was an 18th century preacher in America and those influences were gigantic and let me just try to explain how they were I was standing in a bookstore on Colorado Avenue in Pasadena California in the fall of 1968 Romans bookstore and a used book table and I picked up a little blue book about that big about 60 pages called the weight of glory by CS

Lewis and I've said often books don't change people paragraphs change people and this one changed me so I opened up the first page and read this the New Testament has lots to say about self-denial but not about self-denial as an end in itself we are told to deny ourselves and take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ and nearly every description that we find gives us a appeals to our desire as I tried to explain this morning when I was talking about self-denial and then he adds this if there lurks in most

modern Minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly hope for it is a bad thing and that was me I feared that wanting my good my happiness my pleasure I feared that's a bad thing I shouldn't feel this and he's saying if there lurks that thought in my mind I submit this notion has crept in from Immanuel Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith well he had my attention because he was saying the desire to be happy is not a bad desire and those who say it's a

bad desire are being influenced by the Stoics not by the Bible and then he kept going like this indeed if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak I had never heard anybody say that John Piper your problem in the Christian life your problem is not that your desires are too strong but your desires are too weak I couldn't believe anybody was saying that because I had felt for years my problem

is I want to be happy so bad it must be a bad design anything no that's not your problem your problem is you are settling for a way to live and he finishes it with this amazing sentence that I've never forgotten we are half-hearted creatures fooling around with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by an offer of the holiday as the sea we are far too easily pleased so here's

here's the CS Lewis diagnosis of Holland he's dead now but if he were here right here and I say give me your diagnosis of the problem of the world in Holland he would say they're all too easily pleased and that's true like children fooling around with mud pies in the just sitting in the gutter playing in dirty water and a man is offering them on it I'm gonna give you a holiday at the sea at the ocean for two weeks and the kids say no thank you we're having a good time they don't know he's

talking about that's the problem in the world we heard it this morning from Jeremiah you turn away from the fountain of living waters dig out cisterns in the in the slums well I hadn't heard anybody say that and my professor Daniel fuller built an entire part of his course around the sentence we are far too easily pleased well two more steps what about the glory of God what about praising God here's what Lewis said that blew me away this is in his book reflection on the Psalms the most obvious fact about praise whether of God

or anything strangely escaped me I thought it I thought of in terms of compliment or approval or giving them honor I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows in praise the world rings with praise lovers praising their mistresses readers praising their favorite poet Walker's praising the countryside players praising their favorite game praise of weather wines dishes actors motors horses I had not noticed that justice men spontaneously praised what they value so they spontaneously urge others to join them in praising it isn't she lovely wasn't it glorious don't you think that magnificent the psalmist in

telling everyone else to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they value what they care about I think we delight what we and because we because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment it is its appointed conservation so here's what that did to me God is not an egomaniac when he commands you to praise him if I commanded you to praise me I would be sick evil when God commands us commands you to praise him he's being loving and Lois gave me the answer to how that can

be because he said if God is supremely enjoyable and you are enjoying his beauty his excellence his work his power his wisdom his grace if you're enjoying him and he commands you to give expression to that enjoyment that praise is bringing the joy to completion to consummation and therefore he's loving you he's wanting you to complete your joy complete your joy because he's the only place where it can be found that was revolutionary for me to think of praise that way the consummation of your joy in God but that wasn't the essence of the matter

the essence which is what I ended with this morning is that God is most glorified most praised in you when you are most satisfied in him so praising is the consummation of joy it's the completion of joy but joy is the essence of praising the way I like to say it in English because it sounds so good is prising prising is the essence of praising you pride something you value it you are satisfied with it and that is the heart and the essence of praising otherwise praising is is hypocritical this people honors me with their

lips but their heart is far from me they don't prize me they're just singing songs on Sunday morning because that's what you're supposed to do so that was another huge part and Jonathan Edwards is the one who gave me the key to that because he said God glorifies himself not only by communicating himself to our minds but by communicating himself to our hearts and being glorified by our rejoicing in him now that I've never heard anybody say that so all this has happened in these three years these these thoughts these discoveries were happening and they've

just never been the same since those three years so let me in the end with just one more illustration so the last argument this morning was that God is most glorified in you when you're most satisfied in him so the glory of God depends upon your pursuing pleasure in God it's the essence of the argument just before that was love you can't love people if you don't pursue your joy in God because loving people is the overflow of join God that meets the needs of others solely in like this that that was the last piece

that I couldn't figure out I saw that God is glorified when I'm satisfied in him like my wife receiving I want to be with you Noelle that honors her I want to be with you God you make me glad more than anybody God is honored when I say that and feel that I could not for the life of me figure out how that vertical satisfaction made me a loving person horizontally and and I I knew that there were other religions that had pictures of people sitting with their arms folded and their legs crossed under a

tree experiencing a kind of karma and just let the world go to hell who cares I'm happy I'm happy in God I don't care people are dying or suffering I knew that couldn't be that that's not the Bible like that cannot be but what's what's the link and so I gave you one answer this morning here's my last answer and I'll be done it's odd Paul was talking to the elders in acts 22 the elders of Ephesus and at the end of his talk he said remember this is acts 20 verse 35 there it is

remember he didn't say forget some people say you shouldn't have this motive to be blessed and I'll say if that were true he'd say forget remember it is more blessed to give than to receive more blessing more happy more satisfied more content more joyful to give my life away died for others suffer for others sacrifice for others yes yes you want more joy die for others live for others that's what it says it is more blessed more happy more content if you will give yourself away don't just fold your arms sit under a tree and

say me and you God we're happy I don't care about other people you won't be happy no long that's not joy in God so I discovered that joy in God is a peculiar kind of thing it not only honors God but it also is a kind of oppressor inside of me it wants to be out it wants to draw you in because I the way it works is that joy in God gets bigger if I can include you in it so that your joy in God becomes part of my joy in God so that's why

I came to holla my I wanted to be happier and I look out at you I don't I don't know but I half a dozen of you and it would make me very happy I mean it is making me happy I'm very happy right now just to talk to you about these things but if I if I heard that God took these few words and drew you in to more joy in God that caused you to lay down your life for the people in your country who don't know him if I heard that half a

dozen of you out of the 5,000 that have been here my joy would be greater that's what John said right my my choice complete when my children walk in the truth and you're not my children but kind of I mean some of you are older than I am but not many so I don't know if I'll ever see you again on earth but if God preserves me in faith and if which I think we might sing we did yesterday if God preserves me if he holds me fast and he works in you to bring you

into a deeper sweeter enjoyment of himself for the sake of the world and his glory I will not have come to Holland in vain let's pray father that's your work now I've done all I can do by your strengths and now it's your spirit and I pray that understanding would be granted and that heart work would be done by the spirit to cause Christ to look more attractive more beautiful more valuable more satisfying than anything in this world I asked this in his great name amen thank you