(music) Enjoying God and glorifying God. Are those different things or are they the same thing? It's a really good question for you today, Pastor John, who joins us remotely over Skype today. Here's the question as it comes in to us from a listener named Roland. "Hello, Pastor John. I have a question about enjoying Jesus versus glorifying Jesus.

It seems like enjoying Jesus Christ would look like fellowship and communion with Him, a relatively private matter between Jesus and me, but glorifying Jesus Christ sounds more like observable works and words that show the watching world His worth. These two things seem to feed one another rather than being the same thing.

But I've listened to APJ long enough to suspect that you'd reach a different conclusion, but I can't seem to piece this all together. Can you help me understand their relationship?" Well, not an entirely different conclusion. (laughter) Let's start with a quick clarification about everything else that follows, just to preempt a misunderstanding.

When I speak of enjoying Jesus or glorifying Jesus, I mean in both cases enjoying Him for who He really is and glorifying Him for who He really is. I don't have in mind an enjoyment or a glorification of some popular notion of Jesus that is not who He really is.

So there, that's the beginning clarification. Now, with that set up clarification behind us, let's begin with a hearty affirmation of Roland's thoughtfulness here. Roland is right that glorifying Jesus and enjoying Jesus are not identical. He's also right that enjoying Jesus is in its essence a private experience of the heart and glorifying Jesus in its essence is the offering of evidence to others that Jesus is glorious.

Now, given those two definitions, there is nevertheless at least one situation in which enjoying Jesus and glorifying Jesus become one thing, namely in the situation where my heart can be seen by someone else, even though my body is totally inactive. For example, I might be a paraplegic with no muscles working at all, not even my facial muscles.

If someone could see my heart in that situation and see my heart experiencing joy in Jesus, that joy at that moment would be an instance of glorifying Jesus, because my definition of glorifying Jesus was offering evidence to others that Jesus is glorious, and they'd be seeing that, and it would be evidence to them.

My goodness, there's joy in there, and he can't move a muscle. How great must Jesus be? And there are at least three others, three other persons who can always see my heart, namely God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. So, if my heart is enjoying Jesus, at least three other persons see evidence that Jesus is glorious, and glorious to me, because enjoying Jesus for who he really is, especially in times of suffering, is real evidence that Jesus is glorious, if someone can see it, and someone can always see it.

At least three persons can see it. There's another reason why enjoying Jesus and glorifying Jesus need to be distinguished. That is not treated as identical, and it's because there are ways that God is glorified, or Jesus is glorified by a person's existence, even when the heart of that person is not enjoying him.

For example, Pharaoh was raised up by God to glorify God's power, which he did, but not by enjoying that power, but by simply being the object of God's powerful and righteous wrath. So, Exodus 9, 16, God says, "For this purpose I have raised you up, to show in you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth." So, Pharaoh glorified God's power and name, but not because he enjoyed either of them, but because his destruction became the evidence of God's glorious power.

So, when I say God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him, I'm not saying that God is glorified by a person's existence only when that person is satisfied in him. God was glorified by Pharaoh's existence. His life was an evidence to others that God is powerful.

But Pharaoh was not satisfied in God or his power. So, the words "in us" are very important when I say God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. And I realize, every time somebody asks me a question, I get more clarity about this. I realize that with the words "in us," I have created a confusion, at least for Roland, namely that glorifying God might be something totally private in us, without giving any evidence to anyone outside of us that God is glorious.

And I'm trying to clarify, that's not the case. That's not what I mean. I want to say glorifying God or glorifying Jesus always involves giving some evidence to other persons that God is glorious, beautiful, valuable, great, satisfying. Now let me make one more clarification, or take our clarification one step further.

I said earlier that enjoying God and glorifying God are not identical. Yet, the whole burden of my theology, Christian hedonism, is that any attempt to glorify God that is godly or spirit-guided or gracious or faith-rooted or pleasing to God, any attempt to glorify God must come from a heart that is at least in possession of a mustard seed of being genuinely satisfied in God.

If our hearts are totally devoid of enjoying God, our hearts cannot attempt to glorify God in a way that pleases Him and makes Him look beautiful. And the more fully our hearts are satisfied in God, the more fully God will be glorified in our outward behavior. Now when I say that, I'm thinking of Matthew 5.16 by way of illustration.

Jesus said, "Let your light so shine before others so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven." Now that fits perfectly with Raymond's comment that glorifying God sounds more like observable works and words than a private inner experience. And that's what Jesus is saying here.

People will see your good works and glorify God. Your good works will give visible evidence that God is glorious. Now what Christian hedonism points out, relentlessly points out, is that good works done from a heart with no satisfaction in Jesus are not God glorifying good works. They are not putting God's glory and God's worth on display.

Because the heart that is doing them feels no glory, feels no worth in God. Thousands of unbelievers do that kind of good works, the kind that Paul described in 1 Corinthians 13. "If I give away all that I have and deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing." Jesus did not admire these kinds of good works.

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, you clean the outside of the cup." That means you do lots of good things. They look really good, squeaky clean good things. And the plate is clean on the outside, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. So this outside veneer of good works is not coming from the enjoyment of God, but from greed, for money, for human praise.

And right here in Matthew 5, there is evidence that the good works which glorify God in verse 16, come from a heart satisfied in God. Remember, Jesus had just said, what, four verses earlier, "Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account." And then he says this absolutely crazy and glorious thing.

"Rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven." So, your heart can rejoice in hardship, in persecution, because of the promise of heaven. You will be with God and you will be overwhelmingly rewarded and satisfied. And then he says, "You're the salt of the earth. You're the light of the world." Which I think means the world desperately needs the flavor and the brightness of people so satisfied in God, they can rejoice in suffering.

That's a weird and glorious, beautiful kind of human being. And then he says, "Let that salt be tasted. Let that light shine in your good deeds." That is, let the taste and the brightness of your God-satisfied heart be seen in your... Then your good deeds will have the flavor that really makes God look valuable.

So, God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him means, both that the heart itself, when satisfied in God, is good evidence to God, who sees the heart, that he is glorious in your eyes. And it means that the heart satisfied in God will produce a public brightness and a taste in the way it responds to suffering and in the way it does good deeds.

Thank you, Pastor John, for breaking that down for us. And thank you all for listening to the podcast. If you want new episodes of this podcast delivered to you, subscribe to Ask Pastor John in your favorite podcast app in Spotify, or by subscribing to DG's YouTube channel. To find other episodes in our archive or to submit a question to us of your own, do that online at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

Next time, we're going to talk about the power of singing in winning spiritual battles by looking at the power of singing in the physical battle of 2 Chronicles 20. This is a really important point Pastor John draws out of the text, a point we all need to see and embrace.

I'm Tony Reinke. We'll see you back here on Wednesday. Thanks for listening.