Why Our Happiness Makes God Happy
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:05.000 | As you can imagine, Pastor John, emails flooded our inbox over the recent public words of Victoria Osteen, wife of Joel Osteen.
00:00:13.000 | Victoria attempted to explain how personal happiness and God's glory interact. She said this.
00:00:18.000 | When we obey God, we're not doing it for God. I mean, that's one way to look at it.
00:00:23.000 | We're doing it for ourselves. Because God takes pleasure when we're happy.
00:00:28.000 | That's the thing that gives Him the greatest joy this morning.
00:00:31.000 | So I want you to know this morning, just do good for your own self.
00:00:36.000 | Do good because God wants you to be happy.
00:00:39.000 | When you come to church, when you worship Him, you're not doing it for God, really.
00:00:43.000 | You're doing it for yourself. Because that's what makes God happy. Amen.
00:00:48.000 | Let's open our hearts in Him today. Father...
00:00:50.000 | Now, the Osteens are pretty easy targets. I mean, you could pull a clip from just about anything that they say and critique it.
00:00:55.000 | But this quote, when I first heard it, it really hit home, because it seems to touch on so many things that we're about here at DG.
00:01:02.000 | And I think this explains all the emails, too.
00:01:06.000 | So, Pastor John, when you hear this clip, what comes to your mind?
00:01:11.000 | Well, I would love to believe that Victoria and Joel, who is standing right there beside her, mean by those words that she said what I would mean by them if I provocatively used them in a context.
00:01:28.000 | And I could use them. That may surprise some people.
00:01:32.000 | I could use those very words without changing a single word and mean, I think, biblical truth.
00:01:43.000 | But I don't know her. I haven't watched sermons. I haven't read books.
00:01:48.000 | I don't know all that she or he would mean by them.
00:01:54.000 | And I doubt that they mean what I mean, given what I have heard and have seen.
00:02:00.000 | I would ask kind of a litmus test question that might go something like this.
00:02:05.000 | Is she willing to say to that church, "Yes, and if you don't obey God for joy, you'll go to hell"?
00:02:14.000 | 1 Corinthians 16, 22, "If anyone does not love the Lord, let him be accursed."
00:02:21.000 | That is, if anyone does not delight in God above all things, they will perish.
00:02:27.000 | They'll go to hell.
00:02:28.000 | Or if anyone does not find supreme pleasure in giving God pleasure in their obedience, they'll be destroyed.
00:02:37.000 | Will she quote Deuteronomy 28, 47, "Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart,"
00:02:46.000 | which is what she says we should do, "if you don't do that, you will serve your enemies."
00:02:52.000 | In other words, is she blood earnest and God-centered about what she's saying?
00:02:59.000 | Or is it this just kind of emotional mush that's hyping the congregation?
00:03:05.000 | I don't want to pass judgment on her heart because I don't have the information I need in order to be sure what she really means.
00:03:14.000 | So maybe the most helpful thing I could do, since I've already said I could use these,
00:03:18.000 | is to take maybe a couple of her statements and say what I would mean by them.
00:03:23.000 | And then people can judge, "Okay, is that biblical, and is that something she might say?"
00:03:28.000 | So if I use the words, "When we obey God, we're not doing it for God. We're doing it for ourselves."
00:03:39.000 | If I wanted to go to the Bible and find that, I'd go to Acts 17, 25.
00:03:44.000 | "God is not served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all men life and breath and everything."
00:03:54.000 | In other words, when you obey God, you're not serving God as though he needed anything.
00:04:03.000 | That's the point of Acts 17, 25.
00:04:07.000 | He's the benefactor. You're the beneficiary when you come to God.
00:04:14.000 | That's basically what she said. That's basically what Acts 17, 25 says.
00:04:18.000 | And Mark 10, 45, Jesus said, "The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many."
00:04:29.000 | So he's saying, "Don't come to me to serve me. I didn't come to be served.
00:04:36.000 | Your obedience is not meeting any of my needs.
00:04:41.000 | You're not keeping my business afloat by your employment.
00:04:45.000 | I came to serve you. I'm going to die for you. I'm going to save you.
00:04:50.000 | I'm going to give you everlasting joy. Don't turn that around and make me the beneficiary of your measly obedience.
00:04:56.000 | Your obedience is getting in sync with a life that will bring you everlasting pleasure at my right hand."
00:05:03.000 | That's the way I would say it.
00:05:05.000 | So yes, we obey God not for God in the Acts 17, 25 sense.
00:05:12.000 | That is, not as though he needed anything.
00:05:15.000 | In all our obeying—this is another way I'd say it—in all our obeying, we are the receivers of help.
00:05:24.000 | 1 Peter 4, 11, "Whoever serves, let him serve by the strength that God supplies."
00:05:32.000 | So every step I take in obedience, that step is a gift to me from God's grace.
00:05:41.000 | 1 Corinthians 15, 10, "I worked harder than any of them."
00:05:44.000 | So here's my obedience. "I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I but the grace of God that was with me."
00:05:51.000 | So God is giving John Piper grace, grace, grace, grace, grace with every act of obedience I'm performing
00:05:58.000 | so that I'm the recipient of grace at every moment.
00:06:02.000 | He's not the recipient of anything that meets his needs.
00:06:06.000 | So yes, we do our obedience for ourselves.
00:06:12.000 | The gospel is a "no help wanted" sign, but a "help available" sign.
00:06:19.000 | When Jesus calls sinners, he calls them to a banquet of forgiveness and hope and help.
00:06:24.000 | "Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, you who have no money.
00:06:28.000 | Come buy and eat, come buy wine without money and without price.
00:06:32.000 | Why do you spend your labor on what is not bread?"
00:06:34.000 | That's the kind of invitation the gospel gives.
00:06:38.000 | It is more blessed to give than to receive.
00:06:43.000 | So Paul says that to the elders in Acts 20, 35.
00:06:47.000 | So remember, when you're about to do the obedience of giving, this is a great blessing to you.
00:06:53.000 | Remember that you are being generous for your blessedness.
00:07:00.000 | And I would say the same thing about worship that she did.
00:07:04.000 | She said, "When you worship him, you're not doing it for God, really.
00:07:12.000 | You're doing it for yourself."
00:07:15.000 | Well, what else does "delight yourself in the Lord" mean?
00:07:19.000 | "Rejoice in the Lord."
00:07:21.000 | These are calls to worship.
00:07:23.000 | That is the heart of worship, the very meaning of worship, is find your supreme pleasure in God.
00:07:31.000 | Be satisfied in God above all things.
00:07:35.000 | And if that's what she meant, then I would agree that this is indeed what makes God happy.
00:07:43.000 | Our delighting in God.
00:07:45.000 | Here's the essence of Christian hedonism.
00:07:48.000 | Our delighting in God above all things.
00:07:54.000 | Coming to him as our supreme satisfaction.
00:07:59.000 | Turning away.
00:08:00.000 | Here's a hooker for the Ostines.
00:08:02.000 | I'm not sure they'd say this.
00:08:04.000 | Turning away from money and sex and food and family and power and career and approval of man and successes and ministry and business prosperity.
00:08:15.000 | Turning away from all that to the living God as our only and supreme treasure.
00:08:20.000 | That's what makes God happy because that shows how valuable God is and God loves to see God shown to be valuable.
00:08:31.000 | What pleases God is the glory of God reflected in our enjoying God.
00:08:37.000 | And the glory of God shines most brightly when we turn from all these other treasures to embrace him as our satisfying treasure.
00:08:47.000 | Is that what she meant?
00:08:48.000 | If so, amen, I'm on board.
00:08:50.000 | Does she mean that when she says do it for yourself?
00:08:55.000 | Does she mean do it so that yourself is satisfied in God, not money?
00:09:01.000 | God, not prestige?
00:09:02.000 | God, not power?
00:09:04.000 | God, not health?
00:09:05.000 | God, not success?
00:09:06.000 | That makes God look great.
00:09:09.000 | And when God is made to look glorious, he's glad indeed.
00:09:15.000 | In fact, here's a key verse for me.
00:09:17.000 | Psalm 147 10.
00:09:20.000 | "His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of a man, but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love."
00:09:38.000 | In other words, God delights in people who reverence him and delight in him, not in their legs.
00:09:47.000 | They're not delighting in, "I've got strong legs, I've got beautiful legs," or anything about my strength or my beauty.
00:09:54.000 | That is why a healthy doctrine—I don't know what she thinks about this either—that's why a healthy doctrine of self-denial has to be stirred in.
00:10:04.000 | God is glorified and happy when we deny ourselves the superior satisfaction of money over God, or sex over God, or health over God, or family over God.
00:10:20.000 | God is not happy when we are happiest in food, or family, or health, or wealth over him.
00:10:29.000 | He's angry, really angry.
00:10:31.000 | That's called idolatry, and God is angry at people who are happy when they are happy in their sin.
00:10:42.000 | Here's a text that might be another litmus test to see whether the Osteans would be willing to quote this text.
00:10:48.000 | Ezekiel 36 22.
00:10:50.000 | "I am about to act, says the Lord, for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came.
00:10:59.000 | And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, and I will deliver you from all your uncleanness, and then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good,
00:11:11.000 | and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations.
00:11:15.000 | It is not for your sake that I will act, declares the Lord God.
00:11:19.000 | Let that be known to you.
00:11:20.000 | Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel."
00:11:26.000 | So the point of that text is that as long as we remember the mercies of God bought for us at the cost of Christ's life,
00:11:38.000 | as long as we remember what it cost to save us, there's going to be a place for brokenheartedness, for our sin.
00:11:46.000 | And we will forever make the grace of God in the sacrifice of Jesus, the supreme treasure of our lives.
00:11:56.000 | We will no longer say merely that our happiness makes God happy, which is what she said.
00:12:03.000 | We won't say that merely, "Our happiness makes God happy."
00:12:07.000 | We will remember that years and years of our sinful happiness in the things of this world belittled God and cost him the life of his son to overcome.
00:12:20.000 | So we will rather say, "Our happiness in God, in God's grace, God's undeserved grace, is what makes God happy."
00:12:31.000 | For our happiness in God over all things, over above all things, shows the supreme value of God in the world, and that's what makes God glad.
00:12:44.000 | Yeah, this is absolutely key, Pastor John.
00:12:48.000 | To enjoy the gifts of the world, things like health and money and sex, to enjoy these things more than God is sinful.
00:12:54.000 | And as you explained, we are very concerned with this when it's disguised as gospel truth, or what is sometimes called the prosperity gospel.
00:13:01.000 | And we've talked a lot about this on the podcast.
00:13:04.000 | See episode number 231, where Pastor John explains why I abominate the prosperity gospel.
00:13:10.000 | That's episode number 231.
00:13:11.000 | And not long ago, we welcomed guest Russell Moore, and in episode number 371, he explained what he called the dime store prosperity gospel.
00:13:19.000 | That's in episode number 371.
00:13:21.000 | Check those episodes out in the free Ask Pastor John app for the Apple and Android phones and devices.
00:13:26.000 | And if you want to understand more about why our joy and God's glory are not at odds, that's exactly what we're all about at Desiring God.
00:13:34.000 | We believe God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.
00:13:38.000 | And if this is a new concept for you, we filmed a short four-minute video to explain this.
00:13:43.000 | Go to our website, DesiringGod.org, and click on the About tab at the top of the page, and you'll find it.
00:13:48.000 | We return tomorrow to talk about one major strategy to winning the war against lust.
00:13:54.000 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We'll see you tomorrow.
00:13:56.000 | [end]
00:13:58.000 | Desiring God.org
00:14:00.000 | Desiring God.org
00:14:02.000 | [BLANK_AUDIO]