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The Joy of Jesus's Return


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00:00:00.000 | [music]
00:00:04.000 | Welcome back to the podcast on this Friday.
00:00:06.000 | Pastor John is back with us in the studio,
00:00:08.000 | and no theme runs through your writing and speaking
00:00:11.000 | more consistently than the truth that God is most glorified in us
00:00:14.000 | when we are most satisfied in Him.
00:00:16.000 | It's the Watchword of Christian Hedonism.
00:00:18.000 | And now you've written this new book,
00:00:20.000 | "Come, Lord Jesus, Meditations on the Second Coming of Christ."
00:00:25.000 | It's a beautiful book. I have it in hand.
00:00:28.000 | And today I want to hear what you learned during the process.
00:00:32.000 | You've said many times that you make discoveries as you write.
00:00:35.000 | Back in APJ3, the third episode we ever did, you said,
00:00:39.000 | "Writing for me has become a way of seeing."
00:00:44.000 | And then later in APJ613, another episode on writing, you said,
00:00:48.000 | "Writing is a way the mind can start seeing clearly
00:00:51.000 | what was before a fuzzy tangle of thoughts."
00:00:55.000 | And then, of course, in APJ1196 on book writing,
00:00:59.000 | an episode we did on book writing,
00:01:01.000 | you said that for yourself, writing a book is to watch a book
00:01:04.000 | slowly come to life as, "The writing itself becomes a way of seeing."
00:01:13.000 | So as you write more, you see more.
00:01:17.000 | So as you wrote this new book on the Second Coming of Christ,
00:01:20.000 | what did you see more clearly?
00:01:22.000 | What discoveries stand out?
00:01:24.000 | And particularly, did you make any new key discoveries
00:01:26.000 | about how Christian hedonism echoes in the Second Coming?
00:01:31.000 | Well, the discovery, the key discovery of the connection
00:01:35.000 | between Christian hedonism and the Second Coming
00:01:39.000 | happened a long time ago, not while I was writing the book.
00:01:43.000 | It happened way back when I was first trying to understand
00:01:49.000 | the relationship between God's centeredness and God's love for us.
00:01:57.000 | As soon as I read in seminary Edward's book,
00:02:03.000 | Jonathan Edward's book, "The End for Which God Created the World,"
00:02:07.000 | I began to see everywhere in Scripture statements to the effect
00:02:13.000 | that God does everything for his namesake or for his glory.
00:02:19.000 | And that's what I mean by God's God-centeredness,
00:02:22.000 | doing things for his own namesake.
00:02:25.000 | He predestined salvation for his glory, Ephesians 1:5.
00:02:30.000 | He created the world for his glory, Isaiah 40, 37.
00:02:35.000 | He guided the history of Israel for his glory, Jeremiah 13, 11.
00:02:41.000 | He sent Christ into the world for his glory, Romans 15, 9.
00:02:47.000 | He forgives sin now for his glory, 1 John 2, 12.
00:02:53.000 | He sanctifies his people for his glory, 2 Thessalonians 2, 12.
00:02:59.000 | And then I asked, "Is that true for the Second Coming?"
00:03:03.000 | I asked that a long time ago.
00:03:05.000 | And the answer Paul gives in 2 Thessalonians 7-10 is simply amazing
00:03:14.000 | because it not only shows that Jesus is coming back for his own glory,
00:03:23.000 | but it does so in a way that is an answer to the question,
00:03:30.000 | "Well, how is Christ's self-exaltation at the Second Coming
00:03:37.000 | really an act of love for his people?"
00:03:40.000 | We usually think self-exaltation and love are opposites.
00:03:44.000 | How does that work at the Second Coming?
00:03:47.000 | And here's—let me read Paul's answer.
00:03:50.000 | "He will grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us.
00:03:57.000 | When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire,
00:04:04.000 | inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God
00:04:07.000 | and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus,
00:04:11.000 | they will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction
00:04:14.000 | away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might."
00:04:19.000 | And here comes the key phrase.
00:04:22.000 | "When he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints."
00:04:29.000 | So pause here before I finish the sentence.
00:04:32.000 | Jesus is coming back to be glorified in his saints.
00:04:38.000 | That's what I mean when I say that he is self-exalting.
00:04:44.000 | There is the self-exaltation of Christ.
00:04:46.000 | He's coming back to be exalted.
00:04:48.000 | He's coming back to be glorified.
00:04:51.000 | His aim in coming is that he be exalted, glorified.
00:04:56.000 | That is his purpose in coming, according to that verse.
00:05:00.000 | And it would be easy to show that this is, of course,
00:05:03.000 | the same as God's aim to be glorified in all that he does
00:05:07.000 | because God is sending Christ back so that as the Son is glorified,
00:05:13.000 | the Father would be glorified in him.
00:05:17.000 | And then comes the essentially Christian hedonist twist in verse 10.
00:05:26.000 | "When he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints
00:05:31.000 | and to be marveled at among all who have believed."
00:05:37.000 | So he's coming to be glorified in the saints
00:05:41.000 | and to be marveled at among the saints.
00:05:47.000 | And I ask, are those distinct, like ham and eggs,
00:05:53.000 | like the ham of being glorified and the eggs of being marveled at?
00:06:00.000 | Or are they not distinct, but like jewel and diamond,
00:06:08.000 | or like celebrating and clapping?
00:06:14.000 | A diamond is a jewel.
00:06:16.000 | Clapping is a way we celebrate something.
00:06:22.000 | And when he comes on that day to be glorified and to be marveled at,
00:06:29.000 | my understanding is these two acts, to be glorified, to be marveled at,
00:06:36.000 | these two acts of the believers at the coming of Christ
00:06:41.000 | are not distinct like ham and eggs.
00:06:45.000 | Being marveled at is the way Christ will be glorified when he comes.
00:06:54.000 | He's glorified by being marveled at.
00:07:01.000 | Now let's think about that
00:07:03.000 | because this is right at the heart of Christian hedonism.
00:07:06.000 | What is marveling?
00:07:08.000 | What's marveling?
00:07:10.000 | Another word for marveling is being amazed.
00:07:14.000 | Amazement and marveling are not thoughts.
00:07:19.000 | They're not thoughts.
00:07:21.000 | They're emotions.
00:07:23.000 | If you see something marvelous and you feel nothing,
00:07:28.000 | you're not marveling.
00:07:30.000 | I don't care what you think.
00:07:31.000 | If you see something amazing and you don't feel any amazement,
00:07:38.000 | you're not amazed.
00:07:40.000 | Marveling is a feeling.
00:07:42.000 | Being amazed is a feeling, not a mere thought.
00:07:47.000 | Well, what kind of feeling is it?
00:07:49.000 | It's a good feeling.
00:07:52.000 | People pursue amazement.
00:07:55.000 | They pursue marveling.
00:07:58.000 | That's why we go to the mountains and the canyons.
00:08:02.000 | That's why we get out of the city lights so that we can see the stars.
00:08:07.000 | People pay money to be amazed, to marvel.
00:08:11.000 | It's a good feeling.
00:08:14.000 | It's a desirable feeling.
00:08:16.000 | It's a species of pleasure, joy, gladness, satisfaction.
00:08:24.000 | And you see where that leaves us.
00:08:28.000 | 2 Thessalonians 1:10, "When he comes on that day to be glorified and to be marveled at,"
00:08:37.000 | that is, he's coming to be glorified in us by our marveling at him,
00:08:46.000 | he will be glorified in us when we experience the satisfaction of marveling at him in his coming.
00:08:57.000 | It's pure Christian hedonism.
00:09:01.000 | It's the way God designed the universe.
00:09:05.000 | He will get glory.
00:09:07.000 | That's why he made everything.
00:09:09.000 | He will get glory.
00:09:11.000 | He will get glory and we will get the joy.
00:09:16.000 | And by our getting the joy in his glory, he will get the glory from our joy,
00:09:25.000 | which is the answer to the question, "Now, how is it loving for God to be so God-centered?
00:09:32.000 | How is it loving for Christ to be so Christ-exalting?"
00:09:36.000 | And the answer is Christ is not Christ-exalting at our expense.
00:09:43.000 | He is Christ-exalting through our joy.
00:09:48.000 | The way he maximizes his glory is by maximizing our joy in that glory.
00:09:55.000 | He magnifies the radiance of his glory by multiplying the marveling of people in that glory.
00:10:05.000 | The more we marvel, the more he shines.
00:10:09.000 | The more we marvel, the happier we are.
00:10:12.000 | It's a form of happiness.
00:10:14.000 | This is love.
00:10:15.000 | Right at the heart of the design of the universe is love.
00:10:20.000 | So, yes, I did see a relationship between the second coming and Christian hedonism,
00:10:27.000 | and it goes to the very heart of God's purposes and ways in creation and redemption and consummation in the world.
00:10:36.000 | Christ is coming on that day to be glorified in his saints and to be marveled at among all who have believed,
00:10:47.000 | which takes us back to the verse from which the whole book sprang, namely 2 Timothy 4, 8,
00:10:54.000 | which says, "Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness,
00:10:59.000 | which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me and not only to me, but to all who have loved his appearing."
00:11:07.000 | And that love is a desiring love.
00:11:11.000 | It's a cherishing love, a treasuring love, a longing love.
00:11:15.000 | It's the kind of love that wants the beloved.
00:11:19.000 | And what the discovery of Christian hedonism at the second coming does is simply add another reason,
00:11:27.000 | an amazing reason, for us to love the Lord's appearing.
00:11:31.000 | And that's my prayer for myself and why I wrote the book.
00:11:35.000 | That second Thessalonians 1, 10 passage appears two times in Desiring God, your book.
00:11:40.000 | 2 Timothy 4, 8 doesn't appear in Desiring God.
00:11:43.000 | Was that text something that kind of grew on you over the years?
00:11:47.000 | Do you remember?
00:11:48.000 | Oh, yeah. Just a couple of years ago.
00:11:50.000 | Okay.
00:11:51.000 | I wasn't—I don't recall ever stopping.
00:11:55.000 | I mean, maybe I did, and I just don't remember, but stopping and saying,
00:11:59.000 | "That's big. That's a foundation for a book."
00:12:02.000 | But two years ago, that's exactly what happened.
00:12:04.000 | Got it.
00:12:05.000 | I had thought, "A book on the second coming, I think, is needed.
00:12:09.000 | There's not enough thought about that, not enough affection for it."
00:12:12.000 | But I didn't have any place to hang it.
00:12:14.000 | And when I saw that, I said, "Okay, that's it. That's it."
00:12:17.000 | Yeah, it's incredible how God sort of waits for the right time for a text to kind of stand out, right?
00:12:22.000 | Yep, that's exactly right.
00:12:23.000 | Yeah. Thank you, Pastor John.
00:12:25.000 | Come, Lord Jesus, Meditations on the Second Coming of Christ.
00:12:28.000 | The new book is beautiful.
00:12:30.000 | I'm holding it right now.
00:12:31.000 | It's now out in print.
00:12:32.000 | And, of course, you can download the entire book as a PDF at DesiringGod.org.
00:12:38.000 | Thank you for joining us today.
00:12:39.000 | Ask a question of your own, search our growing archive,
00:12:42.000 | or subscribe to the podcast, all at AskPastorJohn.com.
00:12:46.000 | We're back on Monday, Memorial Day, here in the States,
00:12:50.000 | and we're back with hope—hope for fragile hearts and hope for fragmented minds.
00:12:57.000 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke. See you on Monday.
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