What Makes You Happiest?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | What makes you the happiest?
00:00:07.120 | What are you after?
00:00:08.160 | What's the one main thing that if you got it,
00:00:11.840 | would make you the most joyful person
00:00:14.900 | for the longest amount of time?
00:00:18.200 | Every breathing human being on this planet
00:00:20.320 | is on a quest to find a fountain of joy.
00:00:23.640 | The whole Bible assumes this quest
00:00:26.520 | and the Bible answers the quest too.
00:00:28.960 | And to see how Pastor John has historically turned
00:00:31.040 | to a handful of key Bible texts,
00:00:32.920 | particularly four of them, four go-to texts,
00:00:35.700 | he mentions a lot, about 50 times now
00:00:38.080 | on this podcast to date.
00:00:39.800 | And each is worth a close study.
00:00:42.080 | It's worth writing out by hand into a journal,
00:00:45.220 | worth meditating on, even memorizing.
00:00:47.800 | And those texts include Psalm 40, verse 16,
00:00:51.240 | Psalm 70, verse four, Romans five, verse 11,
00:00:55.000 | and First Peter three, 18.
00:00:57.520 | Each of them in their own way says,
00:01:00.600 | God is the prize of the gospel.
00:01:05.420 | And it's two of these texts that came up
00:01:09.040 | in a very short video John Piper recorded in 2017.
00:01:13.360 | I recently found it and pulled it to share it with you here.
00:01:17.000 | Here's Pastor John.
00:01:18.040 | - What's the deepest root of your joy?
00:01:23.560 | What God gives to you or what God is for you?
00:01:28.560 | One way to get at that question in your own soul
00:01:33.700 | is to ask, why did Jesus die and rise for me?
00:01:38.700 | And of course, there are glorious answers
00:01:42.400 | like he died to forgive my sins
00:01:45.680 | and to take away the wrath of God
00:01:48.040 | and to give me deliverance from hell
00:01:50.960 | and to give me imputed righteousness
00:01:53.280 | and to give me entrance into heaven
00:01:55.400 | and to cause my body to be raised from the dead
00:01:58.960 | and to give me entrance into the new heavens
00:02:01.400 | and the new earth and take away all my tears.
00:02:04.600 | And that would be right and gloriously true
00:02:07.560 | and we should rejoice in it.
00:02:09.280 | But none of them is the ultimate reason for why he died.
00:02:14.280 | First Peter three, 18 says,
00:02:17.880 | Christ suffered the righteous for the unrighteous
00:02:21.080 | that he might bring us to God.
00:02:26.080 | He died to bring us into fellowship with God
00:02:29.320 | because in God's presence,
00:02:30.920 | his fullness of joy at his right hand
00:02:33.360 | are pleasures forevermore
00:02:35.080 | and all the other works of redemption are a means to that.
00:02:40.080 | It says in Psalm 40 verse 16,
00:02:43.040 | let those who love your salvation say continually,
00:02:46.480 | great is the Lord.
00:02:49.000 | It doesn't say let those who love your salvation
00:02:51.480 | say continually, great is your salvation,
00:02:55.320 | but great is the Lord.
00:02:58.180 | Of course, our salvation is great
00:03:01.000 | and we should love it as great.
00:03:03.800 | But mainly our salvation is happening to us
00:03:07.160 | and all the gifts of God are coming to us
00:03:09.720 | in order that we might know God, love God,
00:03:12.920 | treasure God, be satisfied in God.
00:03:17.740 | So the biblical answer to the question,
00:03:20.280 | what is my ultimate deepest source of joy?
00:03:24.760 | It's not his gifts.
00:03:27.120 | It's him known and enjoyed in and through his gifts.
00:03:32.120 | - Amen.
00:03:33.280 | I especially love that Psalm 40, 16 text.
00:03:35.680 | May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you.
00:03:39.800 | May those who love your salvation say continually,
00:03:44.200 | great is the Lord.
00:03:47.680 | That's the point.
00:03:48.680 | To love salvation is to love and worship the saver,
00:03:53.680 | the one who is the deepest root of our eternal joy,
00:04:00.040 | the prize of the gospel.
00:04:01.980 | Again, I would encourage you to study on your own
00:04:03.760 | those four texts I mentioned earlier, Psalm 40, 16.
00:04:06.760 | Again, I just mentioned it.
00:04:08.500 | And also Psalm 70 verse four,
00:04:10.300 | Romans five verse 11 and first Peter 3, 18.
00:04:13.280 | This was audio from a 2017 video titled,
00:04:16.520 | what is the deepest root of your joy?
00:04:18.440 | Christian hedonism in two minutes.
00:04:21.200 | You just heard the entire thing,
00:04:23.080 | but you can find the video online at desiringgod.org.
00:04:26.820 | Thank you for joining us today.
00:04:28.720 | Ask a question of your own or search our growing archive
00:04:31.360 | or subscribe to the podcast all at askpastorjohn.com.
00:04:34.880 | So God is the prize of the gospel.
00:04:39.240 | Amen.
00:04:40.200 | But he also lavishes on us all sorts of other created gifts
00:04:44.160 | that are good and lawful and should be embraced
00:04:47.160 | with thanksgiving too.
00:04:49.560 | And handling such gifts is not without challenges.
00:04:52.400 | So when do our good gifts from God become vain?
00:04:56.840 | That's the question up next time.
00:04:58.940 | I'm your host Tony Reinke,
00:05:00.480 | and we'll see you back here on Friday.
00:05:03.040 | (upbeat music)
00:05:05.620 | (upbeat music)
00:05:08.200 | [BLANK_AUDIO]