What Will Become of Christian Hedonism After You’re Gone?

00:00:00.000 | On Monday, we talked about the relationship between Christian hedonism and historic reform

00:00:09.120 | theology. Today, we look at your fears and your hopes for this movement, Pastor John,

00:00:14.480 | when you're gone. The question comes in from a friend of the ministry who asks this, "Pastor

00:00:19.640 | John, it seems to me that after someone comes along with a paradigm-shifting theology or

00:00:23.800 | philosophy like you have done with Christian hedonism, one of two things can happen with

00:00:28.520 | the next generation that takes up the cause. One, they can lose some of the balance of

00:00:33.080 | the original, provocatively overemphasizing certain aspects and minimizing certain qualifications

00:00:38.900 | or nuances and thereby distorting it. Or two, they can go deeper with the theology or philosophy,

00:00:45.120 | applying it to areas the original champion could not or did not. As you think about the

00:00:49.880 | future of Christian hedonism, Pastor John, when you're off the scene someday, are there

00:00:54.080 | A, some dangers that you would call the next generation to avoid, and B, some areas you

00:00:59.360 | hope they would explore in greater depth or application? Pastor John, what would you say?"

00:01:04.240 | Pastor John Lutzer Let's do dangers first, because in a sense,

00:01:07.920 | you could say that what needs to be done positively is avoid the dangers.

00:01:16.240 | Dangers are everywhere, everywhere, and that's true with every single doctrine in the Bible.

00:01:26.200 | There are no truth claims that are not surrounded by potential distortions of that very truth.

00:01:35.440 | So nothing unique about Christian hedonism here. Every single truth in the Bible is beset

00:01:41.920 | with imminent distortion by the deceptions of the human heart. So let me just name, what

00:01:47.600 | have I got here? I'm looking at my list. Eight. Okay, here we go. Eight dangers. One, there

00:01:53.560 | is the danger that people will begin to treat pleasure as the criterion of what is good.

00:02:00.880 | If it brings pleasure, it is good, they will say. That's wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Instead,

00:02:07.800 | we ought to say that the Bible defines what is good objectively, and the path of that

00:02:16.320 | good ought, ought to give us pleasure and lead to pleasure. And the great quest of sanctification

00:02:24.640 | is to experience that pleasure in the doing of good. Okay, that's danger number one. Number

00:02:31.680 | two, a related danger is that we would cease to pursue pleasure by seeking the transformation

00:02:40.160 | of our sinful preferences, and instead pursue pleasure by changing the Bible to fit our

00:02:49.120 | preferences. That's danger number two. Number three, there is the danger of losing the proper

00:02:58.620 | role of reason in shaping and governing the affections by comprehending the true meaning

00:03:05.760 | of the Scripture and applying it in a transforming way to our hearts. It's no accident that

00:03:12.860 | even though my writings are shot through with an emphasis on the place of the affections

00:03:20.560 | in giving glory to God, I wrote a whole book called "Think! Think! Think!" Yes, think again!

00:03:32.780 | It is a great danger, and a frightening world in which people with strong emotions cannot

00:03:41.380 | be reasoned with according to a rationally comprehended authoritative text. Oh, I'm reading

00:03:50.420 | right now a biography of General Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, and the season of slaughter from

00:03:56.660 | the Ku Klux Klan in the decade after the Civil War was horrific, and there was no recourse.

00:04:03.480 | They were irrational, like animals! And oh, what a horrible, dangerous, terrifying thing

00:04:10.200 | it is to be faced by a mob of unreasoning people who will not draw any just conclusions

00:04:16.480 | from proper premises. So, think, think, think!

00:04:20.620 | Number four, there is the danger of minimizing the role of discipline and willpower in the

00:04:27.500 | pursuit of spontaneous joy and treating spontaneity as the very definition of authenticity, which

00:04:37.620 | it isn't. A great deal of life is lived by the fruit of the spirit called self-control,

00:04:47.000 | and if we put such a premium on spontaneous emotion as the only proper strategy for doing

00:04:54.820 | good, we will certainly go astray.

00:04:59.380 | Number five, there is the danger of confusing natural emotions with supernatural affections.

00:05:07.400 | They overlap, and they penetrate into each other. They're not the same. And if we don't

00:05:14.400 | make the distinction properly between supernatural affections and natural emotions, we will soon

00:05:22.620 | reduce supernatural Christianity to naturalistic psychology.

00:05:28.400 | Number six, there is the danger of oversimplifying the complexities of the human soul and the

00:05:37.200 | complexities of the process of sanctification and the complexities of human relationships

00:05:44.800 | in acts of love. Real life is not simple, and emotional life is anything but simple.

00:05:56.300 | And a great danger exists when simplistic people have no experience with complexity,

00:06:03.540 | no sense of nuance whatsoever—don't even know what I'm talking about right now—when

00:06:07.580 | simplistic people with little insight into the complex nature of the human being and

00:06:14.580 | relationships start making pronouncements about complex things.

00:06:20.320 | Number seven, there's the danger of becoming a one-trick pony where we emphasize Christian

00:06:28.820 | hedonism proper to the neglect of the whole counsel of God in Scripture, or we wear such

00:06:36.640 | hedonism-colored glasses that when we see texts, all we see is hedonism when it's not

00:06:44.540 | even there in those texts.

00:06:48.060 | Number eight, and finally on the dangers, you can see really that behind all these dangers

00:06:56.580 | is the failure to preserve a proper grasp of and esteem for the authority and objectivity

00:07:07.540 | of the Scriptures and the way they exert their authority both through a rational comprehension

00:07:15.500 | of them and a spiritual transformation by them.

00:07:20.800 | The Scriptures themselves will always be the watershed issue till Jesus comes.

00:07:28.560 | Whether any particular theological viewpoint is sound or not sound, balanced or imbalanced,

00:07:33.980 | will be decided on this watershed issue of the truth and understandableness of the Scriptures.

00:07:43.640 | So, with regard to areas I hope people would explore in greater depth or application, one

00:07:52.220 | answer would be give a good deal of energy to those eight pitfalls, and go deep with

00:07:59.040 | your analysis of Scripture and the human soul that you give expression to Christian hedonism

00:08:04.580 | in ways that would minimize those dangers and maximize fruitfulness.

00:08:10.260 | I think one way to describe what needs to be done is to bring Christian hedonism into

00:08:16.220 | direct exegetical and theological contact with certain significant themes and realities

00:08:22.140 | in Scripture, and probe those interrelationships.

00:08:26.220 | I have in mind, for example, saving faith.

00:08:30.260 | I'd love to do that myself if the Lord gives me more time.

00:08:34.540 | How is saving faith related to God-glorifying joy in Christ?

00:08:39.100 | Or I think a good deal more needs to be done on the nature of love, mainly love towards

00:08:46.500 | people.

00:08:47.500 | Paul says love seeks not its own, really, but he also says it is more satisfying to

00:08:54.180 | give than to receive.

00:08:55.540 | So should you seek that?

00:08:57.660 | And he says love rejoices in the truth.

00:09:00.460 | Rejoices!

00:09:01.460 | Rejoices in the truth!

00:09:03.520 | So if you're not rejoicing in the truth, are you loving?

00:09:06.320 | And so joy is essential to love.

00:09:08.860 | Or is it?

00:09:10.260 | And he asks, what profit is it if you give your whole body to be burned and don't have

00:09:16.140 | love?

00:09:17.700 | So seeking profit is okay because he just argued that you don't get any if you don't

00:09:24.540 | love?

00:09:25.540 | I mean, there's just so much to be done here with texts on the nature of love and how it

00:09:32.200 | works with the pursuit of Christ-exalting joy.

00:09:36.060 | I think there needs to be very serious consideration about the relationship between self-denial

00:09:43.020 | in Christian hedonism.

00:09:44.300 | Jesus clearly says we must deny ourselves and take up our cross if we're going to be

00:09:48.740 | His disciples, and Paul certainly embraced a life of suffering more than any of us has.

00:09:54.380 | He embraced, he pursued a life of suffering, and yet he said, "I rejoice in my sufferings."

00:10:01.500 | So were his sufferings self-denial?

00:10:03.580 | I mean, how were they self-denial if they were the place where he found joy?

00:10:09.980 | I think the state of corporate worship in America on Sunday morning cries out for a

00:10:16.500 | great deal of theological and biblical reflection about the relationship between joy and reverence

00:10:23.620 | and the kinds of liturgical activity, or shall we say, the structure of the service that

00:10:30.780 | will build a kind of mindset in the people over the decades that will fit them to relate

00:10:39.620 | to God as He really is, and also be humble and courageous, standing for truth.

00:10:46.340 | In other words, I sense that there are ways of doing corporate worship that Christian

00:10:52.020 | hedonism speaks into that over the decades, without that speaking, will produce a kind

00:10:59.240 | of saint that isn't ready for what we're going to face.

00:11:02.820 | I think the need is great for there to be people with profound insight into the human

00:11:09.040 | psyche, and profound insight into biblical truth, who can probe the relationship between

00:11:15.860 | Christian hedonism and various forms of mental illness, from the least serious to the most

00:11:23.780 | serious.

00:11:26.020 | That's probably enough for now.

00:11:27.420 | Let me just reiterate that both with regard to dangers and potentials to be explored,

00:11:34.740 | that I think the heart of the matter is always going to be biblical authority and biblical

00:11:41.300 | meaning rightly apprehended and rightly applied.

00:11:45.660 | The Bible will be the watershed for preventing dangers and for wonderful floods of new insight.

00:11:54.260 | Amen, that's a good word for this movement that you've generated by God's grace.

00:11:59.460 | Thank you, Pastor John, for that word.

00:12:02.020 | Thanks for listening to the podcast over at our online home.

00:12:04.340 | You can explore all of our episodes, now about 1,300 episodes to date.

00:12:08.700 | There you can see a full list of our most popular episodes, read full transcripts, and

00:12:12.580 | submit questions that you might be wrestling with yourself for all of that.

00:12:16.300 | Go to desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

00:12:17.620 | Well, this week we're looking at Christian hedonism and we end the week looking at the

00:12:24.820 | book title and the ministry title, Desiring God.

00:12:28.580 | Where did that title come from and aren't there better ones that better fit what we

00:12:32.380 | do?

00:12:33.380 | It's a really good question.

00:12:34.380 | It's on the table Friday.

00:12:35.380 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:12:36.380 | We'll see you then.

00:12:37.500 | [music]

00:12:38.500 | [music]

00:12:39.500 | [music]

00:12:40.500 | [music]

00:12:41.500 | [music]

00:12:42.500 | [music]

00:12:43.500 | [music]

00:12:43.500 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

What Will Become of Christian Hedonism After You’re Gone?

Chapters