Does God’s Happiness Depend on Mine?

00:00:00.000 | We close the week with an important question from a listener named Anthony in San Diego

00:00:09.360 | about whether God's happiness is contingent on our happiness.

00:00:14.120 | And it'll make sense here in just a moment.

00:00:15.760 | Here's the email.

00:00:16.760 | "Hello Pastor John, thank you for taking my question.

00:00:19.200 | I am very curious to get your thoughts on the following quote I found in J.I.

00:00:23.400 | Packer's book, Knowing God, a classic.

00:00:27.280 | J.I. Packer writes this, "God was happy without humans before they were made.

00:00:32.400 | He would have continued to be happy had he simply destroyed them after they had sinned.

00:00:37.480 | But as it is, he has set his love upon particular sinners, and this means that by his own free

00:00:43.180 | voluntary choice, he will not know perfect and unmixed happiness again until he has brought

00:00:50.040 | every one of them to heaven.

00:00:52.400 | He has in effect resolved that henceforth, for all eternity, his happiness shall be conditional

00:00:59.880 | upon ours."

00:01:01.200 | Okay, so that last line, "his happiness shall be conditional upon ours," it's tough for

00:01:08.000 | me to swallow.

00:01:09.160 | I think I understand what he's saying, but I would love to hear your take on this.

00:01:13.240 | How would you take this line, Pastor John?

00:01:15.800 | That quote from Packer is found on page 125 in my edition of Knowing God, and I mention

00:01:24.240 | it just because I'd like every one of our listeners to read Knowing God.

00:01:28.760 | I just think it's a classic.

00:01:30.440 | It's sold a million-plus copies way over, and it's so foundational, and it's chock-full

00:01:37.680 | of good sentences like that.

00:01:40.000 | So the sentence that Anthony is having a hard time swallowing says, "God has in effect

00:01:46.160 | resolved that henceforth, for all eternity, his happiness shall be conditional upon ours."

00:01:56.400 | Here's why I think that sentence sticks in our craw.

00:02:01.880 | If you didn't know J.I.

00:02:03.360 | Packer, if you didn't know the wider context of the book or his theology, the word "conditional"

00:02:09.080 | might imply to you that Packer has made God's joy dependent on our self-determining achievement

00:02:20.600 | of joy so that the achievement of it appears uncertain, and therefore God's joy appears

00:02:28.400 | uncertain, and if that's true, he's not God.

00:02:32.120 | This is a big deal.

00:02:35.240 | A God who is making his happiness dependent on his creatures and then crossing his fingers

00:02:45.080 | in the hope that their happiness will be achieved decisively by them is not God.

00:02:55.400 | So he's raising an important question.

00:02:58.800 | Therefore, in addition to—not instead of, but in addition to saying that God's happiness

00:03:07.240 | is conditional upon ours, we need to say also that God's happiness is the invincible pursuit

00:03:18.400 | of ours.

00:03:21.240 | Or to put it another way, God's joy is not only a response to our joy in him, God's

00:03:29.720 | joy is also the cause of our joy in him.

00:03:36.280 | Or to put it yet another way, the entire plan and history of salvation is the overflow of

00:03:47.200 | God's joy bringing into being through Jesus Christ a glorious family of believers who

00:03:55.600 | share in his joy.

00:03:57.600 | So God is not waiting to see if we will become happy by the use of our self-determining powers

00:04:07.200 | so that he can then be happy in response to our happiness.

00:04:11.080 | No, no, no.

00:04:13.160 | God is not waiting to see.

00:04:16.280 | God is eternally happy in the Trinity, and his happiness is overflowing with creation

00:04:24.040 | and redemption and the whole process of bringing us to the point where we have fullness of

00:04:33.080 | joy in his presence and pleasures at his right hand.

00:04:38.360 | So, the way to think about God's joy being conditional upon our joy is that he takes

00:04:48.280 | pleasure in the pleasure that we have in him, which he himself brought about in us.

00:04:58.480 | So yes, yes, his joy is conditional upon ours, but not with any degree of uncertainty that

00:05:10.360 | our joy will come about and that our joy in him will be full.

00:05:17.280 | That's certain because that's what he's pursuing with omnipotent resolve.

00:05:27.120 | He has not just resolved, like Packer says, he has not just resolved to make our happiness

00:05:33.680 | the condition of his, he has also resolved to make our happiness the creation of his.

00:05:42.960 | So Jesus says, for example, in Luke 12.32, "Fear not, little flock.

00:05:50.560 | It is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."

00:05:56.960 | In other words, God's not pictured here as standing by, watching, wondering whether we

00:06:04.360 | get happily into the kingdom and then rejoicing that we're in.

00:06:08.080 | Instead, the picture is God's great joy, his good pleasure, as Jesus calls it, his

00:06:16.800 | good pleasure is to give us the kingdom, is to get us into the joy of the kingdom.

00:06:23.720 | So yes, by all means, according to Luke 15.7, there will be more joy in heaven, including

00:06:31.240 | God's joy, more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 persons who don't

00:06:39.040 | need any repentance.

00:06:40.040 | Yes, indeed, that's true.

00:06:42.960 | But the very repentance that brought about God's joy in heaven was the gift of God,

00:06:52.440 | and he didn't give it begrudgingly.

00:06:54.960 | He gave it joyfully.

00:06:55.960 | This is his good pleasure.

00:06:58.240 | It is his good pleasure to get us into the kingdom by repentance.

00:07:04.620 | So how do we get in?

00:07:06.080 | How do we get into the covenant where our sins are forgiven, the law is written on our

00:07:11.800 | hearts, we delight to do the will of God so that God delights in our happy obedience?

00:07:16.760 | How do we get in there?

00:07:18.640 | And here's the answer of Jeremiah 32, one of my favorite passages in all the Bible,

00:07:23.840 | Jeremiah 32, 40.

00:07:26.040 | I will make with them an everlasting covenant that I will not turn away from doing good

00:07:32.040 | to them, and I will put the fear of me in their hearts so that they may not turn from

00:07:40.760 | me, and I will rejoice in doing them good.

00:07:46.680 | And with all my heart and with all my soul.

00:07:51.200 | So yes, God's joy is driving him in total freedom to bring his people into the covenant

00:07:59.560 | and keep them in the covenant and make them glad in the covenant with the very gladness

00:08:07.520 | of God, just like Jesus says in, I forget, Matthew 25 somewhere, 41, I think, "Enter

00:08:15.760 | into the joy of your master."

00:08:18.840 | We enter into the joy of Jesus.

00:08:21.160 | And then, as J.I.

00:08:22.560 | Packer says, God himself rejoices over us, and our joy in Jesus becomes a constituent

00:08:31.520 | part of God's joy in us.

00:08:36.280 | As it says in Zephaniah 3, 17, "The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who

00:08:41.520 | will save.

00:08:42.520 | He will rejoice over you with gladness.

00:08:45.600 | He will quiet you with his love.

00:08:48.160 | He will exult over you with loud singing."

00:08:53.160 | Zephaniah 3, 17.

00:08:55.480 | Great verse.

00:08:56.480 | So, three cheers for J.I.

00:08:58.120 | Packer, and 3,000 cheers for God, who not only has made our joy in him, the condition

00:09:08.720 | of his joy in us, but has also made our joy in him, the creation of his joy in us.

00:09:18.400 | A beautifully intricate plan, all orchestrated for our joy and for God's glory simultaneously.

00:09:23.560 | So good.

00:09:24.560 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:09:25.560 | And again, we're talking about the classic book today, Knowing God by J.I.

00:09:29.880 | Packer.

00:09:30.880 | And if you've not read it, do it.

00:09:32.400 | Make it a priority to get this book read in your diet in 2018.

00:09:36.840 | You'll have to part with about 12 bucks at Amazon, which is chicken feed compared to

00:09:41.640 | the glory that you'll find inside of it.

00:09:43.360 | Thank you for listening and for making the podcast part of your week.

00:09:47.180 | You can subscribe to our audio feeds and search our past episodes in our archive, and even

00:09:50.960 | send us an email of your own, even questions related to God's happiness and his happiness

00:09:56.840 | in us.

00:09:57.980 | Those are always most fitting for our APJ podcast.

00:10:01.580 | Thank you for this question, Anthony.

00:10:02.840 | You can do all of those things that I just mentioned at our online home at DesiringGod.com.

00:10:06.800 | Well, we believe it is God's design to raise up a few qualified men to lead the local church.

00:10:17.440 | Not all men inside the local church, just a few men.

00:10:20.520 | Most men are not called to lead churches as pastors, but elders are exclusively male according

00:10:26.440 | to the pastoral epistles of the New Testament.

00:10:29.500 | So when it comes to seminary professors, is there a role for women to lead courses in

00:10:34.680 | seminaries or not?

00:10:36.400 | It's a big question.

00:10:38.040 | It opens up a big conversation about God's design for pastoral training.

00:10:42.680 | And that's the next question on the table when we return on Monday.

00:10:46.280 | Should be interesting.

00:10:47.280 | Until then, I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:10:48.940 | Have a wonderful weekend.

00:10:49.940 | We'll see you then.

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Does God’s Happiness Depend on Mine?

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