Our Joyful Duty
00:00:00.000 | Well, God commands us to love him.
00:00:07.960 | He commands us to delight in him.
00:00:11.340 | He commands our cheerfulness.
00:00:14.380 | We see this all over our Bibles in the cluster of texts that we've talked about many times
00:00:18.540 | over the years in Deuteronomy 2847, Psalm 3211, Psalm 374, Psalm 100 verse 2, Romans
00:00:26.100 | 128, 2 Corinthians 9.7, Philippians 3.1, Philippians 4.4, 1 Thessalonians 5.16, just to name a
00:00:32.940 | few of those texts.
00:00:34.860 | Those nine texts I just mentioned in total have made close to 90 appearances on this
00:00:40.420 | podcast now.
00:00:42.300 | This casting of our cheerfulness and joy in God as a point of obedience is something that
00:00:47.180 | causes a lot of Christians to scratch their heads.
00:00:50.380 | Our happiness is a moral issue to God.
00:00:54.340 | It's about obedience, and over that point we see disagreements or misunderstandings
00:00:58.540 | between Pastor John and other theologians, which we saw in ABJ 1584, just as one example.
00:01:06.180 | At the core of Christian hedonism is a bringing together of our obedience to God, our delight
00:01:11.260 | in God, and our glorifying of him.
00:01:14.700 | Here's Pastor John explaining how it all connects in a 1989 sermon.
00:01:20.100 | Morality and law are words that sound negative.
00:01:24.460 | They sound burdensome.
00:01:26.140 | They sound oppressive.
00:01:27.420 | They sound limiting and constricting.
00:01:31.220 | So at this point you're up against saying to somebody, you ought to do something, or
00:01:36.420 | you should do something.
00:01:38.060 | And those words in our culture are fighting words.
00:01:42.140 | We are, we are libertarians to the core when it comes to our own personal religion and
00:01:47.820 | morality.
00:01:48.820 | We don't want anybody telling us we should or ought to do something.
00:01:52.260 | So now what do you do here?
00:01:54.140 | Because in people's minds you've got this oppressive sense, duty, law, burden.
00:02:00.900 | So I want to show you that God's demand for love from you, gratitude from you, trust from
00:02:11.380 | you, and obedience from you is a way to glorify him that is not burdensome.
00:02:19.020 | It is not legalistic.
00:02:22.100 | It is not restricting and confining and a hardship.
00:02:30.420 | Now here's the way I'm going to show that to you.
00:02:34.740 | Now I said last time that we are supposed to be mirrors of God's glory, like the light
00:02:41.980 | coming through there this morning.
00:02:43.620 | You're supposed to be a polished mirror so that when your life is in the right angle,
00:02:47.340 | the right biblical angle, the glory of God shines out in a commendable and attractive
00:02:52.420 | way to the world.
00:02:55.340 | Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good deeds and give glory to
00:02:59.020 | your Father.
00:03:00.020 | The other, the other analogy I used was the crystal or the prism.
00:03:03.060 | And I said each one of you is a uniquely shaped human crystal or prism so that when it is
00:03:09.660 | positioned in the light of God's glory, it refracts out many different colors and lights.
00:03:18.020 | Only you can display for this world some of the things that ought to be seen about God.
00:03:24.060 | Now that's a duty to live that way and that's not a burden to live that way.
00:03:30.780 | And I think I can show you with several illustrations.
00:03:35.620 | If it is your duty to glorify God because He is beautiful and glorious, consider this
00:03:42.940 | illustration.
00:03:45.580 | If there's a beautiful painting in your house or in a museum somewhere and you go to it
00:03:52.420 | and it is beautiful to you, how do you glorify that painting?
00:03:58.780 | Do you glorify that painting and say, "Oh, I got to go buy some paint now and work on
00:04:03.780 | it a little bit.
00:04:04.780 | It needs a border or it needs a little more orange."
00:04:08.420 | And you burden yourself with the need to improve it.
00:04:11.740 | That would be burdensome.
00:04:13.800 | But that's not the way you glorify a painting.
00:04:15.660 | That's an insult to a painting.
00:04:18.540 | The way you glorify a painting is by enjoying it, by delighting in it, and by speaking excitedly
00:04:27.440 | of it to people who are near you, your friends, inviting them to go to the museum and see
00:04:33.860 | it.
00:04:34.860 | And that's no burden and every one of you knows that's no burden.
00:04:38.380 | If you love the painting, you will delight in it and that glorifies the painting.
00:04:45.420 | Or let me use a more homely illustration that's more relevant to most of us.
00:04:49.300 | Suppose somebody makes an excellent meal for you and it is not only tasty, it's beautiful
00:04:56.380 | on the table and it is nutritious.
00:04:58.740 | It's the kind of thing you ought to eat as well as like to eat.
00:05:04.120 | How do you glorify the cook?
00:05:09.020 | Do you glorify the cook by putting on an apron and say, "Oh my, we got to work on this."
00:05:13.220 | Now you go out in the kitchen and you add some more spices or you say, "Oh, we don't
00:05:17.260 | have any chips."
00:05:19.740 | I think of that because Noel always used to say, "So I would say, aren't there any chips?"
00:05:24.500 | You're not supposed to have chips with this meal.
00:05:28.740 | This is not a chips meal.
00:05:33.860 | I did not glorify her culinary arts by asking for chips.
00:05:40.580 | The way to glorify a cook is to eat a lot of the food.
00:05:48.140 | And when you're done to say things like, "Mmm" or "Ahh," that's it.
00:05:56.420 | Now is that a burden?
00:05:58.620 | If you've got an excellent meal in front of you, your duty, your law is to glorify this
00:06:04.660 | meal and this cook.
00:06:07.720 | Is that a burden to do when the way to glorify the meal is to eat a lot of it and to say,
00:06:14.420 | "Mmm" and "Ahh," we call that worship at Bethlehem.
00:06:19.500 | Here's another illustration.
00:06:20.900 | Suppose it's your duty to glorify the strength of a new alloy, a metal that has been created
00:06:29.220 | by somebody and it is in a bridge that holds up a road across a chasm.
00:06:37.980 | Now this is an old fashioned illustration.
00:06:40.940 | How do you glorify the strength of that alloy?
00:06:45.020 | Do you glorify the strength of that alloy?
00:06:46.660 | Boy, we've got to buy some two by fours and work up a good sweat propping up the bridge
00:06:51.380 | before we go over.
00:06:52.860 | Well, that's a dishonor to the alloy.
00:06:56.180 | The way you glorify the alloy is by gathering all your family, all the little ones, all
00:07:02.100 | the old ones in your car and with not one whiff of anxiety, drive right across the bridge
00:07:09.220 | singing as you go.
00:07:11.300 | Is that a burden?
00:07:14.300 | It is not a burden to trust strength if it is strength.
00:07:23.140 | And if you're called upon to glorify the strength of Almighty God, nobody ought to be able to
00:07:30.300 | persuade you that's a burden.
00:07:32.220 | It isn't a burden.
00:07:33.580 | It's freedom to trust strength.
00:07:37.220 | Here's another illustration.
00:07:38.780 | Suppose you are required by law, divine authority to glorify generosity or to glorify grace
00:07:49.420 | or kindness in the heart of God or a friend.
00:07:52.860 | Let's just say a good rich friend that you have who just happens to be so lavish in his
00:07:58.220 | generosity.
00:07:59.220 | He gives you things freely.
00:08:01.460 | Now how do you glorify that person and his generosity?
00:08:06.820 | What by trying to pay him back.
00:08:08.580 | Ooh, this is a mistake we make with God.
00:08:11.780 | We say, God has been so good to me now.
00:08:14.900 | What can I give him to pay him back?
00:08:17.180 | Do you know what that does to grace?
00:08:20.620 | It turns it into a business transaction.
00:08:23.940 | It rips the heart out of grace.
00:08:27.860 | How do you glorify grace?
00:08:31.740 | Primarily by allowing spontaneously lavish gratitude to well up in your heart.
00:08:38.580 | I mean, which of you, if a billionaire came up and handed you a check for a million dollars,
00:08:45.740 | would say, "Oh no, I'm going to have to be thankful."
00:08:48.180 | Burden, heavy load, law, duty.
00:08:54.620 | Nobody.
00:08:55.780 | You see what people have done with Christianity?
00:08:59.260 | It is no burden to glorify God's grace.
00:09:07.780 | Don't let anybody tell you that Christianity is a summons to loss.
00:09:16.140 | So I want to close with this question.
00:09:19.420 | Have you come this morning on the run from God thinking, "I'm not going to turn to the
00:09:26.380 | Christian God.
00:09:27.380 | I'm not going to bow before God because it means loss, loss, loss.
00:09:31.100 | I lose this, this, this, this."
00:09:34.100 | Is there anybody here like that?
00:09:36.380 | If there is, I just pray and I hope that I have shown you just enough, a little tip of
00:09:41.980 | the iceberg of God's glory that will say, "It is not loss.
00:09:48.020 | Whatever you give up to become a Christian because it happens to be sin will be repaid."
00:09:53.540 | The Bible says, "One hundredfold, both in this life and in the life to come."
00:09:58.500 | And I just beg of you, wherever you are in your flight from God or your quest for God,
00:10:04.700 | that you will turn to Him, recognize Him as a fountain of grace and glory and beauty and
00:10:10.020 | strength and yield to Him.
00:10:13.380 | Yeah, Pastor John doing what he does, pressing these two themes of delighting in God and
00:10:17.340 | glorifying God into their organic unity as one aim, one goal.
00:10:25.180 | That's from a sermon titled "The Joyful Duty of Man," preached on January 22nd, 1989.
00:10:30.900 | It can be found online at DesiringGod.org.
00:10:35.220 | I'm your host Tony Rehnke, and we are rejoining in studio with Pastor John on Friday.
00:10:39.780 | We'll see you then.
00:10:40.260 | [END]
00:10:42.260 | 1.
00:10:43.260 | John 1:3 "The joy of man is the joy of his heart.
00:10:44.260 | He is not a man, but a man, who believes in God."
00:10:45.260 | 2.
00:10:46.260 | John 2:8 "But if man believes in God, he is not a man,
00:10:47.260 | but a man who believes in God."
00:10:48.260 | 3.
00:10:49.260 | John 1:7 "If man believes in God, he is not a man,