[Music] there's another relationship between God's self-exaltation doing everything for his glory and our delighting in it and the connection is that when we Delight in it we magnify it this this is the closest thing to the heart of the foundation of what I'm saying that God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him or to put it another way you glorify what you enjoy you glorify what you enjoy if you really love something and Delight in it and talk about it because it gives you such pleasure you make much of it
you exalt it when God is our deepest pleasure we display him as our highest [Music] treasure which is why the pursuit of joy is not optional because the pursuit of God's glory is not optional the fight for Joy the fight for Joy is not peripheral because God's Pursuit Of His glory is not peripheral as close to the heart of the universe is God's doing everything for his glory so close to the heart of Christianity is you're doing everything for joy in God because what you take joy in is magnified it's not just the things you
decide it's the things you love want crave have joy in that you magnify and God Made You to Magnify Him and therefore it cannot be optional or peripheral or non-essential that you say it really doesn't matter that I delight in God I have decided for God or I am committed to God or whatever kind of willpower resolutions you want to make while your heart is in love with pornography or money or family or food as though it's just this level of I decided I prayed a prayer I have a commitment and I seee with worldliness
that won't do it he gets no glory from that food gets Glory from that pornography gets Glory Glory from that family gets Glory from that whatever you treasure with your emotions gets Glory from the intensity of those emotions I wish I could go into why but that's all in that foundational material let me just draw out this implication if it's true that God is most glorified in me when I'm most satis ified in him if that's true then the fight the fight to be happy in God is the most important thing in your life how
did Jesus describe conversion the Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field which a man found and covered up and then in his Joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field I read that text for years without seeing the phrase in his joy and every sermon I ever heard on it was you can have the kingdom sell what you got take the kingdom it was all kind of in terms of decision resolve commitment and that little phrase in his Joy take my car take my computer take my
wedding ring take it I get the treasure and I can buy it all back someday in heaven 100 fold on this Earth and in heaven forever it Jesus got really bent out of shape when Peter said oh Lord we've left everything and followed you like what do you mean you've left everything and followed me like oh what what am I you've left everything and followed me and he said Peter nobody has left mother or father sister brother houses lands for my sake who won't back get back in this age h 100-fold and in the age
to come eternal life get off your self-pity kick how do you how do you live in persecution and suffering and hardship you know the reason I asked this question is because I think when life becomes tremendously hard right up to the brink of death with disease or accident or war or persecution your reality shows and how did Jesus instruct us to be real in that moment how did Jesus instruct us to endure that moment and I'll read you the first text I gave you was Matthew 13:44 about the kingdom this is Matthew 5:11 blessed are
you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven so how do you how do you handle suffering you look through it Beyond it to what God has promised you is working in and for you and you rejoice in it even though tears stream down your face in pain why did Jesus teach us so many things about himself and his father here's why John 15:11 these things I have spoken to you that my joy may
be in you and that your joy may be full have you ever thought that the four gospels are written for your joy these things I have spoken to you that my joy I'll tell you if there's anybody's Joy in the universe I would want to have someday it would be the joy of the omnipotently emotional son of God who sees his father and responds like 10,000 sights of the Supernova or the Grand Canyon I would like it very much if the energy and the Purity and the Delight of the Son of God could become mine
and he said I have spoken these things to you that my joy may be in you and your joy may be explosively full partly in this life oh I'm no perfectionist believe me partly in this life but someday and very soon sooner than you think in the age to come and so there are commands everywhere I'm just underlining how essential the fight for Joy is there are commands everywhere Make a Joyful Noise to the Lord all the Earth serve the Lord with gladness I just sometimes I just get so amazed um people will say I
don't think you should be talking about the pursuit of Joy I think you should be talking about serving Jesus and obeying Jesus just this Joy stuff is just I said what Bible do you read serve the Lord with gladness serve the Lord with gladness this is not rocket science this is clear serve the Lord with gladness there is a kind of service he doesn't like murmuring service bored service glum service serve the Lord with gladness this is biblical are we a Biblical people or just get our truths from our emotions or non- emotions Psalm 32:11
be glad in the Lord and rejoice oh righteous shout for Joy all you upright in heart psalm 37:4 delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart that's a command it's not a suggestion like if you don't want to Delight in me that's okay go ahead with your house you know or whatever it's not a it's not an option it's a command Philippians 4:4 rejoice in the lord always and again I will say rejoice and he was writing from prison and I want to underline and make sure I underline
that you hear me say Paul when he writes like that rejoice in the lord always and again I say rejoice this man knew more suffering than all of you combined probably you read the list I'll read you one of the lists 2 Corinthians 6 as Servants of God we commend ourselves in every way by great endurance in afflictions hardships calamities beatings if you were beaten for Jesus I would like to know who you are come up here and tell me I was beaten for Jesus and I will bow down and give thanks for you and
your faith beatings calamities imprisonments riots labors sleepless nights hunger through honor and dishonor through slander and praise we are treated as Impostors and we're true we're treated as unknown and yet well-known we're treated as dying and behold we live as punished and yet not killed and here's the key phrase for me as sorrowful yet always rejoicing isn't that amazing isn't that amazing if that weren't in the Bible I couldn't come to this conference after that list and that's the short list the long one's in chapter 11 that's the short list of his pain he said
sorrowful but always rejoicing I say to the guys over and over again at Desiring God and I say to the staff at Bethlehem Baptist Church among the several ways that we can describe the ethos of this ministry and this church let this be near the top sorrowful yet always rejoicing I want you to be able to taste that I want suffering people to come into this conference and come into our church and come into the door Desiring God Ministries and feel like these are not chipper people who've never tasted The Dark Night of the soul
never tasted the loss of a loved one never tasted the pain of a wayward child these people are so naive about reality they just jabber about [Music] Joy I don't want that the opposite of joy is not suffering it's despair in suffering I uh near the end of of chapter one in the book when I don't desire God which this conference is built on I have a section entitled this the aim meaning the aim of the book and I would say the aim of this conference the aim is not to soften cushions but sustain sacrifice
the reason I care so deeply about your joy in God is first as I've said because God is glorified by what you enjoy joy and secondly it is that Joy alone which will liberate you and free you to become a person for others a person of of love the fight for Joy is not a fight to be comfortable or have security or be prosperous or any other of the American ideals that are advertised to us every day it is a fight to join Jesus on the Calvary Road and now some of you know the text
I'm about to quote it's a fight to join Jesus on the Calvary Road the fight to be happy in God is a fight to join Jesus on the Calvary Road Hebrews 122 looking to Jesus the author and perfector of our faith who for the joy that was set before him stayed on the Calvary Road and endured the cross despising the shame that's the road I want you on when we're done not a chipper Road it's not a rah rah Road it's not a praise God anyhow Road it's a road of suffering it's a road of
Tears it's a road of empathy with all the dying people that you're aware of and the people whose marriages are are in trouble the people whose kids are on drugs it's the it's the people you know that are broken in your vicinity and your Joy is going to become a high pressure Zone that begins to make wind when it bumps up against low pressure zones of need and that wind is called love because you're moving your joy is moving out it's spilling over I I have I have so much in Jesus no I may not
have a lot of stuff but oh I'm briming with what really counts in life that I'm going to use my stuff and my time and my energy to to make your day for Jesus I want to serve you for Jesus that's the goal horizontally and oh how that will glorify God because Jesus says it does let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works this is the spillover of joy in God according to 2 Corinthians 82 they overflowed in liberality because they were full of joy in Grace So Joy produces
that kind of risk-taking love and it is worth the fight so here's where we are now we just finished foundations 45 minutes worth of Foundations out of these sessions and I I'm going to build now on that and where we're going is that for years and years after I wrote Desiring God 1986 and I've spoken on it hundreds of times I suppose arguing for the things I just spent 45 minutes arguing here and writing about them in every way I could write about them preach as many ways I could preach the most common question that
came back to me when I was done like if I were to just stop right now one of the most common questions would be people coming up often with tears saying I think you're probably right and I'm not there I'm not there I don't delight in God like that I don't feel like he's a Grand Canyon that I stand beside in the morning I don't feel like he's a super noova that causes me to explode with joy I just got to get up in the morning go to work I just just I hardly even know
what you're talking about my my experience of God isn't anything like you're talking about that was the most common for 20 plus years that was the most common response it wasn't a theological issue like oh you know you believe this or you believe that and I don't that wasn't the problem it's yeah that sounds sort of biblical and I feel scared that I may not even be a Christian and you know what I don't think that's a bad response at all back in the Puritan days back when pastors preached the Bible and and people trembled
people were concerned about their Assurance a lot and the Puritan pastors had to get really serious about getting them into the Bible praying down the Holy Spirit and trying to help people gain some holy spirit-given affection for God that would be the internal testimony of the holy spirit that I'm a Child of God instead of just I signed a card I prayed a prayer I must be it's a logical deduction which is the way most people are taught to get Assurance today like I prayed I signed the card Bible says if I do this and
this then I got the holy spirit so I must have the Holy Spirit I have no experience of the Holy Spirit I don't have any changed affections God is Not precious to me he's not a treasure but I did those things so the inference is that's not Christianity and so when when when I said these things for all these years there was this trembling this concern and this simple question of how do you do you fight for Joy I mean what if I don't desire God what if I don't desire God and so I I
kept notes and I thought and prayed for years and years and then finally last year I put this I put this together and now I I would like to just do a few conferences like this to to help people I I I'm not eager to make anybody feel miserable I would like you to work through the misery of questioning to Rock Solid assurance because you should have Assurance the Bible talks about Assurance so I want to clarify now in the minutes we have left here uh I've got four clarifications of the fight for Joy just
statements that what I do mean what I don't mean by the fight for joy and then we'll plow into how you do the fighting in real Nitty Gritty practical ways so we'll we'll start the clarification ation here and we'll pick them up in the next hour so let's see how many we can do here the first one is this the fight for Joy is a fight for joy in God not a fight for joy in general I know some of you are going to walk out of this room and say I said things I didn't
say because you don't like what I'm saying and when you you don't like what somebody says you distort what they say and but I'm trying to make this clear the pursuit of joy that I am commending the fight for Joy is a fight for joy in God not in general that's any old place the subjective experience of Joy means nothing to me unless it is riveted in an object outside of me has reality outside of me I don't created it's just there I must deal with it and it's the glory of God CS Lewis wow
has he been helpful to me on this I don't know if you've ever read CS Lewis's autobiography surprised by Joy sounds like some of you have I commend it it's a little bit weighty not everybody struggles with what he struggled but I did and therefore when you read a book that carries you where you are going it works it helps and let me read you his struggle and his main discovery that book is mainly about this point in my message namely that the pursuit of Joy which everybody has should be not a pursuit of the
experience but of God and joy in God so here's what he said I perceived and this was The Wonder of Wonders that I had been equally wrong in supposing that I desired Joy itself Joy itself considered simply as an event in my own mind turned out to be of no value at all all the value lay in that of which Joy was the Desiring and that object quite clearly was no state of my own mind or body at all I asked if Joy itself was what I wanted and labeling it aesthetic experience had pretended I
could answer yes but that answer too had broken down inexorably Joy proclaimed you want I myself am your want of something other outside not you nor any state of you period close quote the fight for Joy clarification number one is a fight for joy in God so crucial so crucial why then somebody should ask me why then do you insist over and over again in everything you write that we should pursue joy in God why don't you just say pursue God and there are three reasons number one it isn't my idea to talk like this
it's God's idea Deuteronomy 28:47 is one of the scariest warnings in the Bible goes like this because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart you will serve your enemies God Is So bent on having people pursue joy in him that if they try to serve him without that Joy they will serve their enemies that's how blood Earnest God gets in this issue of pursuing Joy so it's not it's not me who made up all the Commandments delight yourself in the Lord rejoice in the Lord that's Bible talk not
my talk second response God is glorified by our experience of him joyfully not merely by the way we think about him the devil has had more theologically accurate thoughts about God in the last 24 hours than you will have in a lifetime you believe that I do I think he's brilliant and he knows God inside out and hates what he knows Satan's problem is not Doctrine it's [Music] Delight therefore get in our head straight won't save us and it won't glorify God by itself and I hope you know I'm really big on Doctrine but I'm
at this point saying the reason I push joy in God is because all the right thinking about God in the world is not as good as Satan's thinking about God he just hates it and the third response is people don't awaken to how desperate their condition is before God usually I think until they begin to measure their hearts by the demand for joy in God a lot of preaching of the law and I think that's a good thing deals with the law just at a doe level a deed level don't commit adultery don't lie don't
steal and doesn't probe the depths of commandment number 10 which is the root of all the others Thou shalt not desire things in ways you shouldn't covet desire is the root problem in the law and so when we preach not enough people probe people's consciences and hearts as to what do you Delight in what are you going to watch on television when you go home tonight what is your default activity when there's no pressure on you what is your heart reflexively drawn to those are the things that Dam us isn't adultery I mean good grief
it does not take a lot of willpower to stay out of bed with another woman but not to have no not to have a desire to look at a picture desire that's damning to know that my heart has to change my whole structure of motivation has to change my whole priority of treasuring things in the world has to change I'm damned I'm just I there's nothing I can do I feel totally devastated by this indictment that that's a third reason why I think we should not just say pursue God cuz you know what what people
will do with the word pursue God pursue God pursue God they'll just fill in all the verbs they feel comfortable with I'll read about him I'll talk about him I'll do some things for him don't you touch my heart CU I'm in love with money and I'm in love with the praise of man so don't connect pursue god with Pursuit joy in God because that will get me in trouble so those are my three reasons for why even though I totally agree with CS Lewis we are after God in a certain way not to indict
him not to ignore him not merely to say right things about him we're after God to enjoy him and if we don't we don't honor him it's a huge huge issue my my goal is God and happiness in all that he is for me now I'm going to stop here let me tell you where we're going next the second the first clarification of this was the pursuit or the fight for Joy is a fight for joy in God not just the experience in general the second clarification is Piper why must we fight if Joy is
a gift fight and spontaneity and if Joy isn't spontaneous it's not Joy you don't decide to be happy in the next five seconds you can decide to pursue Happiness by doing things that make you happy but your emotions are not like your your little finger you can take your little finger and under almost any emotional circumstances say go down go up go down go up go down isn't that remarkable go down go up you can do that you can't do that with happiness so if happiness is something that it just comes and is spontaneous and
the Bible in Galatians 5:22 says it's a fruit of the Holy Spirit then what's this fight language that's the that's the second clarification that we will we will take up next time let's pray Father in Heaven please take these words and our time in worship and apply them by your spirit to the hearts of your people awaken fresh longings to know you longings to see you longings to rest in you and be satisfied in you and be content content in you and Delight in you and treasure you above all things I'm asking for a miracle
Lord so please come and perform it I pray in Jesus name amen [Music]
