God’s Supreme Happiness

00:00:00.000 | Two of your major themes, Pastor John, are God's sovereignty, of course, and the centrality

00:00:10.060 | of joy in God.

00:00:11.520 | We're Christian hedonists.

00:00:13.760 | How do these two topics relate?

00:00:15.280 | How does God's sovereignty and the centrality of joy in God relate?

00:00:18.400 | How does Calvinism connect to joy in God?

00:00:22.080 | I love that question, Tony.

00:00:23.440 | I really do.

00:00:24.440 | I mean, these are two of the most precious and glorious things in my life.

00:00:28.640 | I could talk about these all day long, which created a problem when I went to answer this

00:00:31.960 | with you.

00:00:35.440 | I think I'm going to need to break this into two, if I'm not mistaken.

00:00:39.920 | So you decide whether you want to make this two or not, but there's two ways to answer

00:00:43.840 | this.

00:00:44.840 | One is foundational, about the very nature of God himself and how his godness, his free

00:00:50.280 | and independent sovereignty relates to our joy.

00:00:54.320 | That's the first one that I'll answer.

00:00:55.800 | And the second one that may need a second APJ is how God's sovereignty in this fallen world

00:01:04.400 | actually helps us fight for our joy in the face of enormous suffering and sorrow.

00:01:11.000 | So let me tackle the first one, and then we'll see how long it takes, and we can go for a

00:01:15.040 | second if you want to.

00:01:17.400 | Here's how they relate.

00:01:19.400 | God's sovereignty is owing to his completeness as God.

00:01:25.900 | He has no needs.

00:01:27.880 | He depends on no one and nothing.

00:01:32.160 | All that he needs, he has in and of himself, and therefore he is infinitely happy in the

00:01:41.960 | fellowship of the Trinity.

00:01:44.980 | So the love that the Father has for the Son, and the Son has for the Father, this love

00:01:51.720 | is essentially joy, because they're not lovingly enduring each other.

00:01:58.360 | Like there's no long suffering in the Trinity like there is for sinners outside the Trinity.

00:02:04.500 | They have an infinite pleasure in each other's perfections, and therefore joy, and this is

00:02:11.720 | what just blows my mind, and I love it, therefore joy is at the essence of God's Godness.

00:02:20.560 | It is the foundation of his sovereignty.

00:02:24.020 | The reason God is free and independent and powerful outside God is that he is completely

00:02:31.880 | happy inside God.

00:02:34.320 | He has no needs, and he's sovereignly independent because he's happy at the core of his being

00:02:41.560 | in his all-sufficiency, his self-sufficiency, and therefore when he creates the world, it's

00:02:50.000 | not owing to any deficiency in him.

00:02:53.200 | He didn't create out of need.

00:02:55.520 | He didn't create because he hoped that his creation would supply something that he was

00:03:01.120 | lacking.

00:03:02.260 | It was motivated by giving, not needing, and therefore, and this is the greatest news in

00:03:08.500 | all the world, is that therefore he spills over with his own joy in God.

00:03:16.520 | God's creating the world is God's intention to share with creatures in his own image the

00:03:23.360 | very joy that he has in himself.

00:03:26.360 | That's what he wanted to share.

00:03:28.180 | So when you read in John 17, the prayer of Jesus, what he desires for us at the end of

00:03:35.560 | that prayer is that we would be with him where he is to see his glory that God had given

00:03:44.000 | him and that we would love him with the very love that the Father has for the Son, which

00:03:50.680 | is I think what the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is really all about.

00:03:54.840 | The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father loving the Son, and the Son loving the Father.

00:04:01.680 | And oh for the day, Tony, oh for the day when we'll be done with sinning and the joy that

00:04:06.960 | we have in God will be the kind of joy that he really designed for us to have.

00:04:12.000 | And therefore, our joy is not marginal to the reason for the universe.

00:04:18.480 | This is what's so mind-boggling when people say, "Oh, I think joy is just icing on the

00:04:23.380 | cake of Christianity, and really it's all about commitment and obedience, and if joy

00:04:28.520 | comes, that's nice, and if it doesn't, that's okay."

00:04:30.760 | It's crazy!

00:04:32.200 | It's right at the heart of what the universe, who God is and who we are.

00:04:37.400 | So we were created to share in God's joy, in God, and he made us to do this.

00:04:46.200 | And here's the last piece of this big answer.

00:04:50.360 | He made us to do this in such a way that when we are most satisfied in him, he is most glorified

00:04:58.360 | in us.

00:04:59.360 | You see why I'm a Christian hedonist, why I've spent all my adult life trying to think

00:05:04.480 | through the meaning of joy in a world like this.

00:05:11.800 | When we are thrilled, when we are most satisfied in all the perfections of God, we show those

00:05:18.720 | perfections to be precious to us, to be our treasure.

00:05:22.160 | We highlight them and lift them up and magnify them, and that's why the universe was made.

00:05:27.820 | So if you ask me, "Tony, what's the relationship in the big picture between the sovereignty

00:05:32.860 | of God and joy?"

00:05:34.840 | I would say, "In God, joy is the ground of his sovereignty and the overflow of his sovereignty."

00:05:45.460 | Because he is perfectly happy, he is independent and free and needs nothing and sovereignly

00:05:51.320 | works on behalf of others, and when he does that, what he's working for is our joy in

00:05:57.600 | him.

00:05:58.600 | And so there's this great circle of enjoying God and glorifying God.

00:06:04.680 | Yes.

00:06:05.680 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:06:07.440 | And speaking of sovereignty and Calvinism, Pastor John has a new book coming out on November

00:06:11.360 | 11th, which is titled "Five Points Towards a Deeper Experience of God's Grace."

00:06:16.400 | Be watching for that.

00:06:17.400 | Thank you for listening to this podcast.

00:06:19.560 | Email your questions to us at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.

00:06:22.480 | You can visit us online at DesiringGod.org to find thousands of books, articles, sermons,

00:06:26.680 | and other resources from John Piper, all free of charge.

00:06:29.000 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:06:30.000 | Thanks for listening.

00:06:30.600 | [Music]

00:06:31.600 | [End of Audio]

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God’s Supreme Happiness

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