How to Explain Christian Hedonism over Lunch
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:05.000 | David writes in from Little Rock, Arkansas.
00:00:08.000 | "Pastor John, how would you share the message of Christian hedonism,
00:00:12.000 | that we exist to glorify God by enjoying Him forever,
00:00:15.000 | from a single passage of Scripture with a co-worker or a fellow college student
00:00:19.000 | over a 30-minute lunch meeting? Where would you go?"
00:00:23.000 | I'd go to Pizza Hut.
00:00:24.000 | [Laughter]
00:00:25.000 | Oh, that's not what you meant.
00:00:26.000 | I would go to Philippians, first to Pizza Hut, with a Bible or an iPad
00:00:32.000 | and a napkin and a pen to write on, and I would go to Philippians 1, 20 to 23.
00:00:37.000 | Here's what it says.
00:00:38.000 | "It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not at all be ashamed,
00:00:43.000 | but that with full courage now as always Christ will be magnified in my body."
00:00:47.000 | So now that's one piece of what I want, because part of that statement is
00:00:50.000 | God is most glorified in me when I'm most satisfied in Him.
00:00:57.000 | So here I've got Christ being magnified.
00:01:00.000 | That's what He wants, Christ magnified in my body, whether by life or by death.
00:01:04.000 | Then he says, verse 21, "For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain."
00:01:11.000 | Now I'd stop right there and get my friend to talk with me about gain here.
00:01:15.000 | What does he mean when he says to die is gain?
00:01:17.000 | Tell me, what do you think he means?
00:01:19.000 | And he would probably say something like, at least I would tell him this is what I think it means,
00:01:26.000 | "Paul believes that when he dies he's going to be more satisfied than when he lives."
00:01:35.000 | Right? Doesn't it say that?
00:01:36.000 | "For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain."
00:01:40.000 | So if you die and it's gain, that means in the two columns of gain and loss,
00:01:46.000 | if you put everything that this life has to offer in one column and you put death in the other column,
00:01:51.000 | he says the death column is gain, which must mean he values something on the other side of death
00:01:57.000 | more than he values all this stuff here, and it's more satisfying, and then you'd ask, "What is that?"
00:02:02.000 | And then you'd read the rest of the text.
00:02:05.000 | Verse 22, "If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me,
00:02:09.000 | yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I'm hard-pressed between the two.
00:02:13.000 | My desire is to depart," okay, die, "and be with Christ."
00:02:19.000 | Now there's the answer to the question, "What could be gain if everything in this life is lost?"
00:02:25.000 | And his answer is Christ.
00:02:27.000 | So I would put the language of satisfaction on that.
00:02:29.000 | I'd say, "Doesn't that mean that Paul is saying to die is gain,
00:02:37.000 | that is, to die means I will experience a superior satisfaction on the other side,
00:02:43.000 | namely because Jesus is there, face to face, more intimate than here?"
00:02:49.000 | And if I could get him to agree with that, then we'd go back to verse 20 and get the logic.
00:02:56.000 | So it says, "It is my eager expectation and hope that Christ will be magnified, glorified, made much of."
00:03:06.000 | We could linger over that for a little bit.
00:03:09.000 | "Christ would be glorified in my body, whether by death, for to die is gain."
00:03:16.000 | And I would just say, "Now talk to me about that."
00:03:18.000 | I'm trying to get him to give me what I see here.
00:03:22.000 | He says, "Christ will be magnified by my death because to me to die is gain."
00:03:29.000 | And we've already said that the gain is finding Christ more satisfying than everything in this world.
00:03:36.000 | So wouldn't the paraphrase be, "Christ is magnified in my body when I die,
00:03:45.000 | if I experience Christ in dying as supremely satisfying."
00:03:51.000 | And then I would collapse it further and say, "Doesn't that say Christ is magnified
00:03:57.000 | when I am satisfied in Christ?"
00:04:01.000 | And I hope he'd say, "Well, yeah, that's what it says."
00:04:04.000 | And then I would say, "Here's my rose story."
00:04:09.000 | I take flowers to my wife. I ring the doorbell. She looks at me.
00:04:14.000 | I say, "Happy Anniversary, Noel." And she says, "Oh, they're beautiful, Johnny. Why did you?"
00:04:19.000 | And I say, "It's my duty." And she's not happy with that answer.
00:04:24.000 | Instead, I run the video again. I ring the doorbell. She looks at them.
00:04:29.000 | "Oh, Johnny, they're beautiful. Why did you?" And I say, "Because I can't help it.
00:04:34.000 | I love buying flowers for you. In fact, I've got a plan for the evening
00:04:39.000 | and we're going to go out on the town because there's nothing I'd rather do
00:04:42.000 | than spend the evening with you."
00:04:45.000 | Not a million years would she say, "Nothing you'd rather do than go out with me."
00:04:51.000 | That's all you ever think about is you, you, you. What would satisfy you, you, you?
00:04:55.000 | She would never say that. Why? Because when I say, "Nothing would make me happier
00:05:03.000 | than to be with you tonight," she feels honored, glorified, magnified.
00:05:11.000 | And the more satisfied in her I am, the more glorified she feels by me.
00:05:18.000 | And therefore, we operate on this principle all day long when we're thinking clearly.
00:05:24.000 | So I'd go to Philippians 1, 20 to 23, and I'd tell my rose story.
00:05:29.000 | At Pizza Hut.
00:05:31.000 | At Pizza Hut. Over a personal pan with a diet coke.
00:05:34.000 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:05:36.000 | Well, this passage in Philippians 1 appears all over everything Pastor John produces.
00:05:41.000 | But in another APJ episode, it played an interesting role in answering the question,
00:05:45.000 | "Is it selfish for me to pray for joy?"
00:05:49.000 | That's episode number 147. Be sure to check that out.
00:05:52.000 | And like David did, please email your questions into us at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org
00:05:58.000 | and visit us online at desiringgod.org to find thousands of books, articles, sermons,
00:06:03.000 | and other resources all free of charge from John Piper.
00:06:06.000 | And all intended to help explain why God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.
00:06:12.000 | I'm your host Tony Ranke. We'll see you tomorrow.
00:06:15.000 | [END]
00:06:18.000 | [END]
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