Does God’s Pursuit of His Glory Ever Detract from His Love?
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:04.000 | Week number 235 begins on the podcast today.
00:00:08.000 | It's a lot of weeks and the theme of all those weeks of episodes and the theme of everything
00:00:13.360 | that we do at DesiringGod.org is to proclaim the truth that God is most glorified in us when we are
00:00:18.720 | most satisfied in him. And that leads to a lot of questions to work through like this one from
00:00:23.600 | a podcast listener named Amber. "Hello Pastor John, you often talk about the reason for God doing
00:00:28.480 | things being ultimately to bring himself more glory or to magnify his own glory. But a question that
00:00:34.960 | has really been bothering me and is on my heart is this, would God still have died for me even
00:00:40.560 | if it didn't, hypothetically speaking, bring him any glory?" Let me give a couple reasons why
00:00:48.480 | if Amber thinks deeply about this question, I don't think she will want to ask it.
00:00:56.000 | I don't think she would even want to contemplate this possibility if she could. So here's the
00:01:04.080 | reasons I say that. There's two of them. Number one, I doubt that anything good can come from
00:01:14.400 | trying to hypothesize about possibilities in the New Testament that do not exist and cannot exist.
00:01:25.040 | This is especially true of hypotheses that require God to be viewed in a way that doesn't exist,
00:01:34.000 | a way that the New Testament excludes. It would be like breaking the first commandment
00:01:40.560 | to have no other gods before you. We would be trying to imagine a world in which we have created
00:01:48.800 | an idol, that is, a God who's not the true God. So my first reason for saying I doubt that Amber
00:01:55.840 | wants to pursue this question is that no good is going to come from the mental effort to create a
00:02:05.520 | world in which your mind is dominated by an idol. Number two, this is more important, I think.
00:02:15.360 | The main reason I think that she would not want to pursue this question if she thought more deeply
00:02:22.960 | about it is that her underlying assumption is probably mistaken. Now, I can't be sure, of course,
00:02:31.440 | of what her underlying assumption is, but let me venture. She can test it. It sounds like
00:02:39.360 | she wants to be loved by God—who doesn't?—and feels that this love from God is somehow compromised
00:02:50.560 | or lessened by the fact that in loving her, he's exalting or magnifying or displaying his own glory.
00:03:00.320 | I think that's the bottom line issue for Amber. So I think she's asking something like this.
00:03:07.440 | Would God still want me, value me, or bless me, even if his glory was not exalted or magnified
00:03:18.400 | or displayed in that kind of love? But right here, it is so crucial that we penetrate to the bottom
00:03:29.840 | of what God's love for Amber and me really is. Amber seems to feel that the essence of God's
00:03:41.760 | love for her will be experienced when she feels wanted by God for who she is. Would he want me
00:03:54.560 | even if his glory were not magnified in wanting me? Now, think about that. What does wanting me
00:04:04.960 | mean? Does it mean he wants me in order to use me like a slave to run his errands?
00:04:12.800 | Does wanting me mean because he sees in me so much beauty that it enriches him to have me?
00:04:25.120 | Does it mean it gives him pleasure to bless me and make me happy? Now, I think the answer to
00:04:36.320 | that third question—the first two is no, and I think the answer to that third question is yes.
00:04:40.640 | God delights for us to be happy. He wants us. He wants us. He calls us a treasure. He wants us
00:04:54.000 | not to use us to meet his needs—he doesn't have any—but to make us glad as he meets our needs.
00:05:04.080 | And what are our deepest needs? What would make Amber and John Piper truly happy?
00:05:17.760 | God knows what the answer is, and he made us this way. What will make us most happy is being with
00:05:28.400 | God, seeing God, the glory of God, enjoying God. But this means that all the greatness and all the
00:05:39.120 | goodness and all the truth and justice and wisdom and beauty, glory of God must be preserved and
00:05:46.080 | magnified in saving us precisely so that in having us for himself, he might be able to satisfy us
00:05:57.040 | with himself. So I don't think Amber wants to even contemplate a universe, a world,
00:06:08.400 | in which there is a different kind of God than this. There is no better love. There is no better
00:06:16.320 | love for us than the way God really loves us. He does want us, but he doesn't want us as slaves
00:06:26.400 | to run his errands. He wants us as children who are satisfied in all that their father is for
00:06:34.640 | them in Jesus. Glory is the name we put on that. Amen. Again, this is tied right into the theme of
00:06:42.640 | our entire ministry, the beautiful harmony and synthesis that God is most glorified in us when
00:06:48.160 | we are most satisfied in him. Thank you, Pastor John. And as you can hear, we're still working
00:06:53.680 | through some audio issues on Pastor John's end. Again, thank you for your patience. And this is
00:06:57.840 | my reminder to let you know you can subscribe to our audio feeds and search our episode archive,
00:07:02.160 | and even reach us by email with a difficulty you may be facing in your own life. Do all that
00:07:06.240 | through our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. Well, moms can never lose sight
00:07:13.280 | of the fact that your walk with God is as essential for the good of your children as the food that you
00:07:19.120 | feed them. And this is especially true with small children and newborns. And it can be difficult to
00:07:24.400 | feed your own soul in those times. And Pastor John is back on Wednesday with some practical
00:07:29.360 | soul care for exhausted mothers of young kids. I'm your host Tony Rink, we'll see you on Wednesday.
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