How Fleeting Pleasures Sidetrack Our Love
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | We are far too easily pleased.
00:00:09.080 | That's the problem in America.
00:00:10.920 | We're not too hedonistic, too pleasure-centered.
00:00:14.400 | No, we're not pleasure-centered enough.
00:00:17.440 | We settle for the world's paltry joys
00:00:20.080 | at the expense of giving our lives
00:00:22.320 | to pursue our deepest and most lasting joy.
00:00:25.500 | And in settling for the trivial pleasures of this world,
00:00:28.520 | we undermine both of our chief callings in life,
00:00:30.920 | the two great love commandments that we have,
00:00:33.520 | to love God with everything that we have
00:00:35.840 | and to love others as ourselves.
00:00:37.800 | In fact, it's only as we pursue our highest joy
00:00:41.160 | that we are driven to enact these loves.
00:00:43.600 | Essential but counterintuitive point
00:00:46.600 | that we make in Christian hedonism, Christian hedonism.
00:00:50.440 | And it was a point Pastor John was making back in 1983
00:00:54.520 | as he was first putting that Christian hedonism
00:00:57.520 | into a sermon series for his church.
00:01:00.000 | From that essential series would come the book,
00:01:01.880 | "Desiring God" and of course this entire ministry.
00:01:05.440 | And today I wanna share with you a clip from his sermon,
00:01:07.920 | "The Labor of Christian Hedonism,"
00:01:10.500 | a sermon preached on October 2nd, 1983.
00:01:14.240 | Have a listen to this point.
00:01:16.100 | If you and I don't pursue our ministry
00:01:21.920 | because we expect to find great joy in it,
00:01:26.800 | then we don't pursue the command of God.
00:01:30.160 | There's another verse.
00:01:33.960 | This one is so familiar you don't need to look it up.
00:01:36.280 | It's Acts 20, verse 35.
00:01:39.840 | And strikingly, it's Paul's address
00:01:43.800 | to another group of elders.
00:01:46.280 | And listen to how he motivates those elders
00:01:49.200 | to care for the weak.
00:01:51.520 | Remember the words of the Lord Jesus,
00:01:54.920 | how he said, "It is more blessed, elders,
00:01:59.200 | to give than to receive."
00:02:02.640 | Now, when Paul says, "Remember this,
00:02:06.280 | keep it in your mind,"
00:02:08.000 | he must mean that when it's in your mind,
00:02:11.140 | it functions rightly as a conscious motive for ministry.
00:02:16.000 | He must mean that the moral value
00:02:20.920 | of our generosity in ministry
00:02:23.440 | isn't ruined when we pursue it hedonistically.
00:02:27.760 | Like so many people think, it is.
00:02:30.640 | It is not wrong to desire and to pursue
00:02:35.040 | the blessedness which Jesus promised
00:02:38.200 | when he said it is more blessed to give
00:02:40.800 | than to receive.
00:02:41.800 | He didn't say, "Now this is the truth,
00:02:43.360 | and get it out of your head as soon as you can,
00:02:44.880 | unless you do it."
00:02:47.200 | Pursue the blessedness that comes from giving,
00:02:53.200 | which brings us back to where we were last week.
00:02:55.360 | What's the hindrance to love in the church?
00:02:58.480 | It's the same hindrance to worship.
00:03:03.240 | The thing that keeps us from obeying
00:03:06.280 | the first vertical commandment
00:03:08.840 | is the same thing that keeps us from obeying
00:03:11.080 | the second horizontal commandment.
00:03:13.640 | And it is not that we are all trying
00:03:17.320 | to please ourselves,
00:03:20.040 | but that we are far too easily pleased.
00:03:26.440 | We don't really believe Jesus
00:03:29.480 | when he says there's more joy,
00:03:34.160 | more blessedness,
00:03:35.800 | more full and lasting pleasure in giving
00:03:39.840 | in a life devoted to helping others
00:03:43.560 | than there is in a life devoted
00:03:45.640 | to our material comfort.
00:03:47.600 | We don't believe it.
00:03:50.200 | And therefore, the very longing for contentment
00:03:54.600 | that according to Jesus ought to drive us
00:03:58.040 | to simplicity of life and labors of love
00:04:01.760 | contents itself instead with the broken cisterns
00:04:04.800 | of American prosperity and comfort.
00:04:08.480 | The message that needs to be shouted
00:04:10.160 | from the top of the IDS tower
00:04:11.680 | in the city center to pleasure-seeking Americans
00:04:16.000 | is this, "Hey Americans,
00:04:18.880 | you're not nearly hedonistic enough.
00:04:23.040 | Don't lay up for yourselves
00:04:23.920 | treasures on earth where moth and rust corrupt
00:04:26.440 | and where thieves break in and steal.
00:04:28.200 | Go for broke.
00:04:29.280 | Lay up for yourselves
00:04:30.280 | treasures in heavens where no moth
00:04:33.760 | and rust corrupt,
00:04:35.440 | where no thieves can break in and steal.
00:04:38.280 | Quit being satisfied with little five and a quarter percent
00:04:41.480 | yields of pleasure that get eaten up
00:04:43.840 | with the moths of inflation
00:04:45.360 | and the rust of death.
00:04:47.320 | Invest in the blue chip,
00:04:49.400 | high yield divinely insured securities of heaven."
00:04:54.160 | A life devoted to material comforts and thrills
00:04:59.480 | is like throwing money down a rat hole.
00:05:03.000 | But a life simplified for the sake of love
00:05:07.680 | yields dividends unsurpassed and unending.
00:05:14.600 | Hear the word of the Lord,
00:05:16.080 | O Americans.
00:05:18.080 | Sell your possessions,
00:05:20.120 | give alms,
00:05:21.920 | provide for yourselves purses
00:05:24.560 | that do not grow old
00:05:26.960 | and treasures in the heavens that do not fail.
00:05:32.560 | Come on!
00:05:34.000 | Become real hedonists.
00:05:35.960 | Wake up!
00:05:37.880 | That's the message.
00:05:39.720 | We've got gospel.
00:05:41.720 | We've got good news to share with the world.
00:05:47.720 | Leave the broken cisterns of temporary,
00:05:50.720 | unsatisfying pleasures.
00:05:52.840 | Come to Christ in whose presence there is
00:05:55.480 | fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore.
00:06:00.880 | Join us in the labor of Christian hedonism.
00:06:04.240 | For the Lord has spoken,
00:06:06.520 | it is more blessed to love than to live in luxury.
00:06:12.000 | Oh, that we believed it.
00:06:14.000 | That the Lord's word were believable to us.
00:06:19.280 | Turn to Hebrews chapter 10.
00:06:22.520 | I am just amazed at what I've seen
00:06:24.480 | in Hebrews 10, 11, and 12.
00:06:27.160 | He is so amazingly consistent in his Christian hedonism.
00:06:31.400 | It's phenomenal.
00:06:32.880 | Hebrews 10, and we'll read 32-34.
00:06:36.880 | "Recall the former days,
00:06:39.720 | when after you were enlightened,
00:06:41.360 | you endured a hard struggle with sufferings,
00:06:45.080 | sometimes being publicly exposed
00:06:48.880 | to abuse and affliction,
00:06:50.200 | and sometimes being partners with those so treated.
00:06:53.680 | For you had compassion on the prisoners,
00:06:56.680 | and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property,
00:07:01.800 | since you knew that you yourselves
00:07:04.360 | had a better possession and an abiding one."
00:07:10.560 | You see the situation?
00:07:12.400 | Some Christians had been arrested and put in jail.
00:07:17.160 | The other believers were facing a moral dilemma.
00:07:20.920 | Do we go underground, pray for them,
00:07:23.360 | or do we express our solidarity with them
00:07:27.200 | and risk losing our homes?
00:07:31.680 | And the text says that their joy
00:07:35.960 | in God's reward overflowed in love.
00:07:39.680 | Here's what they did,
00:07:40.880 | if I can reconstruct the situation.
00:07:43.320 | They looked at their own lives
00:07:45.440 | and quoted to themselves Psalm 63.
00:07:48.800 | "The steadfast love of the Lord is better than life."
00:07:53.360 | And they looked at their houses
00:07:55.120 | with all of their furniture
00:07:57.560 | passed down from their grandmother,
00:08:00.000 | their precious vases,
00:08:02.880 | and they said to themselves,
00:08:04.760 | "We have a possession in heaven
00:08:06.920 | that is better and longer lasting than any of this.
00:08:11.840 | Let goods and kindred go,
00:08:14.040 | this mortal life also,
00:08:16.000 | the body they may kill.
00:08:17.600 | God's truth abideth still,
00:08:19.520 | his kingdom is forever."
00:08:21.000 | And they went with Jesus to the jail
00:08:23.320 | and they lost their possessions.
00:08:25.400 | And what does it say?
00:08:26.600 | "They felt as they went, joy."
00:08:31.000 | Christian hedonists, through and through,
00:08:33.760 | they knew where their treasure was
00:08:37.040 | and they didn't have to act
00:08:38.520 | according to any sterile sense of duty.
00:08:41.880 | They just glutted themselves on the joy of love.
00:08:46.000 | - Such a key point in a key sermon in the Piper Archive.
00:08:49.080 | It's titled "The Labor of Christian Hedonism"
00:08:51.600 | preached on October 2nd, 1983.
00:08:54.200 | It was part of a series
00:08:55.160 | in which Pastor John outlined Christian hedonism,
00:08:57.400 | a series that would eventually become the book,
00:08:59.880 | "Desiring God."
00:09:01.480 | It also happens to be the only mention
00:09:04.400 | that I can find in any of his sermons
00:09:06.080 | to the topic of inflation.
00:09:08.680 | That's how I found it originally.
00:09:10.040 | I was looking for what he had said on that
00:09:12.080 | and you heard it in his contemporary paraphrase
00:09:14.080 | of Matthew 6, verses 19 to 20,
00:09:15.960 | where he said,
00:09:16.800 | "Quit being satisfied with little five and a quarter percent
00:09:19.040 | yields of pleasure that get eaten up
00:09:20.920 | by the moths of inflation and the rust of death.
00:09:24.920 | Invest in the blue chip high yield
00:09:26.560 | divinely insured securities of heaven."
00:09:29.200 | So good, I love that line.
00:09:31.520 | So relevant for us today in this age of inflation.
00:09:35.200 | Well, I found this clip.
00:09:36.200 | If you find one, email it to me.
00:09:37.640 | Give me your name, hometown, the sermon title,
00:09:39.760 | the timestamp of where the clip happens in the audio
00:09:41.760 | and make a note of what stands out to you.
00:09:44.120 | Put the word clip in the subject line of an email
00:09:46.480 | and send it to me at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:09:49.000 | That's an email address, askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:09:53.840 | Well, did Paul say that Christians
00:09:55.280 | no longer have evil desires inside?
00:09:58.480 | You might get that impression from Colossians 3,
00:10:00.840 | and it's a text we need to think more about
00:10:03.560 | because we have some really good questions
00:10:05.280 | from a listener named Mary.
00:10:07.520 | Mary puts on a clinic for us
00:10:09.120 | in how to write an articulate, specific, hard question
00:10:13.400 | via email to us, and with it, we will end the week.
00:10:16.400 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke,
00:10:17.920 | and we'll be back with Pastor John on Friday.
00:10:20.200 | We'll see you then.
00:10:21.160 | (upbeat music)
00:10:23.740 | (upbeat music)
00:10:26.320 | [BLANK_AUDIO]