How Does Delight in God Fuel Delight in Creation?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Here's an interestingly put question

00:00:07.760 | from a podcast listener who writes in to ask this.

00:00:09.920 | Pastor John, how does our delight in God

00:00:12.720 | fuel or provide a stable foundation

00:00:15.200 | for our delight in the good gifts of creation?

00:00:18.640 | - I was surprised by this question.

00:00:21.860 | I will try to say something about it

00:00:23.800 | with the help of C.S. Lewis in just a minute,

00:00:25.840 | but I was surprised because usually the question

00:00:28.320 | goes the other way around.

00:00:29.440 | How can our delight in creation fuel our delight in God

00:00:33.560 | so that it doesn't become idolatry?

00:00:36.600 | I mean, that seems to be the kind of concern

00:00:38.660 | that a lot of people have is I love stuff so much.

00:00:42.640 | I love pizza and I love friendship and I love nature.

00:00:46.740 | How can that feed my delight in God without becoming,

00:00:49.900 | but that's not the question here.

00:00:52.000 | So I had to kind of redo my brain and say,

00:00:55.360 | okay, this is good.

00:00:56.920 | I don't usually ask this kind of question.

00:00:59.160 | It is interesting.

00:01:00.240 | The question is how does our delight in God

00:01:03.560 | fuel or provide a stable foundation

00:01:08.080 | for our delight in creation?

00:01:10.240 | So I'll try to take the question seriously as it stands.

00:01:14.920 | Here's the main thing.

00:01:16.700 | Believing in God and delighting in God for himself

00:01:21.240 | is the only way to protect nature,

00:01:26.680 | all the good things God has made, from being God.

00:01:30.340 | Without belief in God and delight in God

00:01:35.600 | as our supreme treasure,

00:01:38.080 | we have to treat nature as self-existent.

00:01:43.000 | If there's no God, nature is self-existent,

00:01:46.400 | big bang or whatever you want to call it.

00:01:49.360 | And we are all wired to worship what is self-existent,

00:01:54.880 | especially if it is as glorious as the universe.

00:01:58.800 | But the moment we turn nature into a God, we lose it.

00:02:03.800 | We lose nature for what it really is.

00:02:10.160 | It was not made to be worshiped.

00:02:14.800 | Nature will lure us, then cheat us,

00:02:19.160 | if we try to make her absolute.

00:02:22.360 | She's a creature and all her true, amazing,

00:02:27.360 | scintillating, stunning glory

00:02:31.740 | is the glory of a God-designed creature.

00:02:36.060 | Now, no one has said this better, as far as I know,

00:02:42.940 | than C.S. Lewis.

00:02:44.720 | So let me read, last thing I'm gonna do,

00:02:46.580 | just read a section from his book, "The Miracles."

00:02:50.840 | I'm quoting it from my book.

00:02:54.000 | This is the most recent book I wrote,

00:02:55.860 | "Seeing Beauty and Saying Beautifully."

00:02:58.640 | And I'm quoting it because I leave out some things

00:03:01.480 | and it helps collapse it down.

00:03:03.240 | And I'm reading from page 139 in that book

00:03:07.200 | where I was blown away by what Lewis says.

00:03:11.000 | So here's a chunk of one of the greatest writers

00:03:15.200 | and apologists in the 20th century, C.S. Lewis.

00:03:19.040 | He says this.

00:03:20.440 | "The Englishness of English is audible

00:03:25.440 | only to those who know some other language as well.

00:03:31.520 | In the same way, and for the same reason,

00:03:36.520 | only super naturalists really see nature.

00:03:41.520 | You must go a little way from her

00:03:46.060 | and then turn around and look back.

00:03:48.960 | And then at last, the true landscape will become visible.

00:03:53.880 | You must have tasted, however briefly,

00:03:57.200 | the pure water from beyond the world

00:04:02.200 | before you can be distinctly conscious

00:04:06.120 | of the hot, salty tang of nature's current.

00:04:11.120 | To treat her as God or as everything

00:04:16.080 | is to lose the whole pith and pleasure of her.

00:04:20.280 | Come out, look back, then you will see

00:04:23.440 | this astonishing cataract of bears, babies, bananas,

00:04:28.440 | this immoderate deluge of atoms, orchids,

00:04:32.480 | and oranges, and cancers, canaries, fleas,

00:04:35.360 | gases, tornadoes, and toads.

00:04:37.880 | How could you have ever thought this was ultimate reality?

00:04:42.680 | How could you ever have thought that it was merely

00:04:46.320 | a stage set for the moral drama of men and women?

00:04:49.680 | She is herself.

00:04:51.840 | Offer her neither worship nor contempt.

00:04:55.200 | Meet her and know her.

00:04:57.520 | The theologians tell us that she,

00:05:00.880 | like ourselves, is to be redeemed.

00:05:04.720 | The vanity to which she was subjected

00:05:07.460 | was her disease, not her essence.

00:05:11.140 | She will be cured, but cured in character,

00:05:15.680 | not tamed, heaven forbid, not sterilized.

00:05:19.520 | We shall still be able to recognize our old enemy,

00:05:24.520 | friend, playfellow, foster mother,

00:05:27.880 | so perfected as to be not less, but more herself,

00:05:32.880 | and that will be a merry meeting.

00:05:36.800 | (laughs)

00:05:37.640 | I just love Lewis, don't you?

00:05:38.480 | - Oh, my yes.

00:05:39.300 | - Nobody writes like Lewis.

00:05:40.400 | So, in other words, the full God-intended beauty

00:05:45.400 | and wonder and delight that we are to have in creation

00:05:51.280 | is possible only for those who don't make a God

00:05:57.060 | out of creation, but have a superior delight

00:06:00.360 | in the maker of creation.

00:06:02.360 | Unless creation mediates to us God's wonder

00:06:09.280 | through its wonder, we have not yet tasted

00:06:13.840 | its true and full wonder.

00:06:16.560 | That's the pleasure only those can have

00:06:20.760 | who know and delight in God through Christ

00:06:25.160 | above all things.

00:06:27.200 | - Amen, thank you, Pastor John.

00:06:29.680 | And again, that beautiful Lewis quote

00:06:31.160 | can be found in Pastor John's new book,

00:06:32.680 | "Seeing Beauty and Saying Beautifully,"

00:06:34.640 | a wonderful book in its own right,

00:06:36.780 | if I can say that.

00:06:37.680 | Well, there, I just said it.

00:06:39.120 | It's one of my favorite books of 2014,

00:06:40.960 | and you can download the entire book right now

00:06:42.940 | free of charge from our website, DesiringGod.org.

00:06:45.680 | Go there, click on the Books tab at the top of the page

00:06:48.280 | and look for the title, "Seeing Beauty

00:06:49.640 | and Saying Beautifully."

00:06:51.120 | But don't thank me.

00:06:52.080 | We make our books available online for free

00:06:53.920 | because we have some incredible financial donors

00:06:56.080 | supporting this ministry.

00:06:58.560 | Well, it's not easy to get Pastor John

00:07:00.520 | to talk about the book of Ecclesiastes.

00:07:03.040 | Tomorrow, I'll do my best to change that.

00:07:05.560 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:07:06.520 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John Podcast.

00:07:09.080 | (upbeat music)

00:07:11.660 | (upbeat music)

00:07:14.240 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

How Does Delight in God Fuel Delight in Creation?

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