Suffering, Sacrifice, and Christian Hedonism
00:00:00.000 | Desiring God is your signature book, Pastor John. It was first published in 1986, and of course
00:00:09.200 | Desiring God is the name of the ministry, too, but it's also the title of this foundational
00:00:13.160 | 400-page book, and in the last podcast you talked a little bit about how and why Chapter 10 on
00:00:17.840 | suffering came about as an added chapter to the second edition of the book released in 1996.
00:00:23.960 | Explain this a little bit more for us. Why did you add the chapter on suffering and sacrifice?
00:00:28.640 | We were talking about how to prevent Christian hedonism, which basically says,
00:00:35.880 | "Pursue your joy in God." How to prevent joy from being our God instead of God being our God. And
00:00:44.640 | I gave about, what, four or five or six ways that Christian hedonism avoids that mistake,
00:00:50.720 | and I was talking there about an experience early on where I don't think I felt as fully
00:00:59.120 | as I should how this would land on people. And here's the example I had in mind. I published
00:01:06.880 | the book Desiring God, and a review of it was written by a missionary. Actually, it was a
00:01:15.160 | mission advocate, you might say. I can't even remember his name now, but it was a pretty
00:01:20.520 | scathing review in a mission journal or somewhere. And basically it said, "Piper's view is just
00:01:29.080 | warmed over middle-class American," he didn't use the term "prosperity gospel," but, you know,
00:01:37.480 | "feel-good Christianity." And I just, I thought to myself, "Did he read this?" And I thought,
00:01:44.640 | "You know, in order to avoid that misunderstanding, I'm gonna have to hammer a lot more clearly on a
00:01:54.720 | robust doctrine of suffering and a robust doctrine of self-denial." Because all he heard there was,
00:02:03.320 | "Be happy anyway, and if you're not happy, you must be sinning." And he just heard it as so
00:02:08.280 | superficial, and there was none...in those days I hadn't used the term from 2 Corinthians 6:10,
00:02:16.600 | "Sorrowful yet always rejoicing." That's become a mantra for me now, because life, I think,
00:02:25.280 | lived by John Piper for 40 years, has taught me that while the book is titled Desiring God,
00:02:34.520 | it's not titled Having Arrived at Perfect Constant Pleasure in God. There is sorrow
00:02:42.160 | at every turn of the road in this fallen life, not only because things go hard for us, but now
00:02:50.520 | in this modern world we can watch people suffer everywhere all the time. Anytime anything happens
00:02:57.880 | in the world of a painful kind, it makes its way to our eyes. And therefore, if we weep with those
00:03:04.800 | who weep, like Paul said, there's always reason to weep, which means if we can't have a theology,
00:03:11.640 | if Christian hedonism can't create a people who can cry and rejoice at the same time,
00:03:18.920 | let's just close up shop. Because you should always be crying, and you should always be
00:03:24.600 | rejoicing, and there's always reason to do both in your life. And so you will be oscillating in
00:03:32.960 | and out with what you present to the people in front of you, but inside there's always going
00:03:37.840 | to be this burden that you carry for pain of the people that you know or the people you don't know,
00:03:43.520 | and the joy that you have in God, who's the triumphant lover of your soul, and will work
00:03:50.800 | everything together for good. So the upshot, Tony, of that discovery from that encounter,
00:03:56.720 | back whenever that was, '80, '86, I published the book, I guess, or '87, I have tried to put
00:04:05.040 | a chapter on suffering or an article on suffering or a sermon on suffering or an illustration of
00:04:11.920 | suffering in almost every presentation I make about Christian hedonism, lest anybody make
00:04:19.760 | that observation that, "Oh, this is just another one of those American middle-class feel-good
00:04:24.400 | theologies," when in fact, my whole purpose was to destroy and attack a comfortable settling in
00:04:34.160 | with the American way, which I think finds its pleasure in stuff, not God.
00:04:39.760 | Yes. Thank you, Pastor John. You can download the book, Desiring God, for free at
00:04:42.960 | desiringgod.org. Click on the resource library, and then click on books at desiringgod.org. You'll
00:04:48.000 | find thousands of other free books, articles, sermons, and other resources from John Piper.
00:04:52.160 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening.
00:04:54.320 | [END]
00:04:55.360 | Desiring God.org
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00:04:57.440 | Desiring God.org
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