Well, how do we glorify God in the little day-by-day things? The question comes up today. Pastor John, hello, my name is Trent. I've begun reading your book, Desiring God, and I understand now what you mean by Christian hedonism. How wonderful it is to know that God commands our supreme happiness and joy in Him.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10 31, "Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." How can I give the Lord glory by enjoying Him through food? Is it by knowing that the food for that day was provided for me by Him and it's okay to enjoy it?

Or another example would be happiness, when our children do well in school. I'm just wondering how to be happy in the Lord in the right way to bring Him the most glory. How do I do all things to glorify God? Christian hedonism. I brought up Christian hedonism. Say a word about that.

Put everything in context here. Christian hedonism teaches that every person, all of us, should seek with all of our might to maximize the intensity and the duration of our enjoyment of God above all things, because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. If you are most satisfied in family or job or fame or success or money or food or music or health or staying alive, if you are more satisfied in any of those than you are in God, then you diminish the glory of God and you magnify the glory of what you're most satisfied by.

And the Bible makes clear that we should live in order to display the supreme worth and beauty and glory of God. That's our primary reason for existence. Now there are two main challenges that Satan uses to diminish the glorification of God in our lives by causing us to value something else more than we value God.

And one of those is pain, and the other is pleasure. Those are Satan's two strategies for ruining the way we glorify God. Pain can cause us to value something else more than God by making us angry at God that we have this pain and making us want to be done with it more than we want to embrace God, which means that pain is a golden opportunity for us to glorify God by showing how much more we value Him than we value comfort or being free from this pain.

Pleasure can also cause us to cherish something else more than God, not by making us angry at God, but by making us forget God because we're so satisfied in the pleasures that His gifts give us. We can see that in Ezekiel 16, 14, where God says to Israel, "And your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through the splendor that I had bestowed upon you, declares the Lord, but you trusted in your beauty and played the whore." In other words, God gave Israel the great gift of beauty, and instead of leading them to glorify God for the gift, they fell in love with the gift.

They preferred the gift over the giver; they dishonored God by not being satisfied in God but falling in love with God's good gift. So pain and pleasure are Satan's strategies that can ruin our glorification of God. Withholding good things can ruin us; giving us good things can ruin us.

Youth can be an occasion for dishonoring God and not glorifying Him, or for indeed glorifying Him. And Trent's question has to do with this last point, namely, how do you glorify God in the good things that He gives us, like He mentions food and children? If he wants a book-length answer to that, then he should read Joe Rigney's book, Things of Earth.

So I'm just going to point to a couple of passages which will give part of the answer, I think, to his question. Philippians 4, 11-13, Paul says, "I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound.

In any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me." So Paul makes clear that there is a spiritual secret, something deep and wonderful to be learned in the Christian life that enables a person not only to be brought low, but to abound, not only to hunger, but to have plenty, not only to be in need, but to have abundance.

In other words, Paul is making it clear that abounding and having plenty and having abundance is as much of a challenge to the glory of God in our lives as is suffering. So Paul had to learn something peculiar and special and deep to help him know how to abound, and that's Trent's very question.

And I think Paul's answer of what the secret is for abounding is in chapter 3, verse 7 and 8. And the secret is not in discounting or diminishing the goodness of God's gifts, but in knowing Christ so well and loving Him so deeply and finding Him so satisfying that good things can be received from His hand as Christ-exalting gifts, and good things can be torn from our hands as Christ-exalting discipline.

Here's what he says in chapter 3, verse 7. "Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ." In other words, Christ is way better. "Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth." That's the point. "The surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

For His sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I might gain Christ." The fact that good things are counted as loss or as rubbish does not mean they can't be enjoyed, but it does mean that the moment they compete with the superior beauty and worth and glory and satisfaction of Christ, they become an enemy.

They become rubbish. But Paul has learned the secret that if Christ is more precious than anything, then both the loss and the presence, the gain of things, good things, is an occasion for treasuring Christ. And the other passage that I think points to the answer is 1 Timothy 4, 4 and 5, where Paul says, "Some forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving." So foods and sex in marriage created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

"For everything created by God is good. Nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer." Oh, my. Every word there almost begs for a sermon or an essay or something. And then he adds in chapter 6, verse 17, "Don't set your hope on uncertain riches, but on God who richly provides us with everything to enjoy." Now I wrote an article once, ages ago, called "How to Drink Orange Juice to the Glory of God." And that's what I'm being asked.

So let's make orange juice the test case, and we'll end with just a few illustrations of, so how do you drink orange juice to the glory of God? Number one, I will affirm joyfully from the word of God that the color yellow is a gift of God. The sweet taste is a gift of God.

The nourishment and the way my body uses it is a gift of God. The sun and the rain that grew the oranges is a gift of God. The trucking and the grocery chain that brought it to me is a gift of God. And the list could go on and on.

I will gladly, joyfully say that out loud. I will feel that. Number two, I will lift my heart and voice in prayer, thanking God, and I will do this often so that others can know where all this came from and how wise and strong and good God is. Number three, I will remind myself that I do not deserve this juice.

I deserve to be in hell today. And so I will give thanks that my sins are forgiven and that this pleasure is in fact bought for me. This orange juice pleasure is a blood bought gift for this child of God on the way to heaven. Number four, I will remind myself that this particular pleasure, this taste, this coolness on my tongue, this nourishment reveals something of God to my senses and my soul that could not be known any other way.

That's why the world was created, because all of it is like a prism giving us some new sight of the glory of God. And then finally, I will share this juice in love with others at the table. I won't hoard it all, and I will use the strength that it gives me to live for the glory of God.

Orange juice to the glory of God. Thank you, Pastor John. And Trent, thanks for the question. Wonderful question. And thanks for joining us today on the podcast. For our feed, our archive, or to send us your own question, go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. God loves to work for those who wait for him, so how do we wait for God?

And does waiting for God mean that we don't act? And when do we stop waiting and start acting? All of those are very important questions on the table next time when we return. I'm Tony Reinke, and we'll see you back here on Wednesday. Thanks for listening. 1. Desiring God 2.

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