(upbeat music) On Wednesday, we were in Holland. Today in Brazil. We're blessed with many friends in Brazil and today's email comes from one of them, a man named Kawa, spelled C-A-U-A with a tilde on the last day. Kawa, Kawa lives in Rio de Janeiro. Hello, Pastor John, I have been debating the following question in my head for a long while.

Does God command our praise because it glorifies him or does he command our praise because he wants us to be happy? Does he command our worship for himself or for our good or for both? Can you help me understand this please? Well, I will do my best because this is what I've been trying to do for more or less 50 years.

I think the answer to this question is just about the best news in all the world. At least in my own experience to see the relationship between God's command for praise and my experience of happiness was one of the most important discoveries that I ever made in my life.

So I hope I can bring some clarity to it. I don't think there was any biblical text that my parents spoke to me or wrote to me after I left home more frequently than 1 Corinthians 10 31. So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

That command, that duty was imprinted on my soul from as early as I can remember and I am so thankful that it was. It was a wonderful thing. Whether you're young, whether you're old, to have a short pithy summary of the purpose of human existence. What a gift to know why you exist, to know why you are on this planet.

Indeed, to know why there is anything at all in existence. What a gift, what a privilege. And it became obvious over time that this wasn't simply my duty to glorify God in everything I do, but this was God's design for his own action, all of it. He does everything.

He does everything he does to the glory of God. He predestines to the glory of God. He creates to the glory of God. He guides history to the glory of God. He sends Jesus to live and die for the glory of God. He sanctifies his church to the glory of God.

Jesus is coming back to be marveled at and glorified among his people. Everywhere in the Bible, God is glorifying God. He does what he does to make God himself look as beautiful and glorious and great and wise and just and good and loving and gracious as he really is.

So the duty that I grew up with expanded into a full-blown view of the universe. I think that's really there in 1 Corinthians 10, 31, because text after text pointed to the ultimate purpose of all things, namely God is committed to glorifying God. And I remember seeing, this was in I think 1976 or so, I remember seeing for the first time those three verses in Ephesians 1, verse 6, verse 12, verse 14, all three of them saying unto the praise of his glory, unto the praise of his glory, unto the praise of his glory, as if Paul were to say, hey, to get it the third time, if not the second, if not the first time, God does everything and he saves especially, unto the praise of his glory.

So there's absolutely no question how to answer the first part of Cowan's question. Does God command our praise because it glorifies him? Yes, you are chosen, destined, adopted, redeemed unto the praise of the glory of God's grace, Ephesians 1, 6. God plans for our praise, creates for our praise, rules the world for our praise, saves us through the death of Jesus for his praise, and that praise is specifically praise ultimately for the glory of God's grace.

Now that vision of God's God-centeredness in creation and redemption, salvation, all of history, that God-centeredness of God himself left me for a long time perplexed about the place of my happiness, my happiness in this overarching divine purpose. My perplexity was compounded when I heard preachers, for example, during a call to missions, say things like, "Seek God's will, not your own.

Seek to please God, not yourself." And I knew there were texts in the Bible that said things like that, but it left me wondering, well, will it always be the case that when I'm acting in obedience, I'm acting against my will and against my pleasure? That seemed hopeless to me.

As if you were to grow in your obedience and be condemned to unhappiness the rest of your days or eternity even. Then came the great discovery. It came from several sides, but the most shocking and compelling statement of the discovery was in C.S. Lewis's book, "Reflection on the Psalms." He not only nailed my confusion, my perplexity, but in doing so, he gave the answer to it.

So I want you to hear what I heard. So I'm gonna read the whole section, a couple of paragraphs. And remember, what he's dealing with here is that parts of the Bible, especially the Psalms, sounded to him when God commanded his own praise. He said it sounded like an old woman seeking compliments, and that really bothered him.

So here's what he wrote. And this was life-changing for me. "But the most obvious fact about praise, whether of God or anything, strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise, unless, sometimes even if, shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it.

The world rings with praise, lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game, praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians as scholars." I think he's laughing. (chuckles) "I had not noticed how the humblest, and at the same time, the most balanced and capacious minds praised most, while the cranks and misfits and malcontents praised least.

I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, they spontaneously urge others to join them in praising it. Isn't she lovely? Wasn't it glorious? Don't you think that magnificent? The psalmists, in telling everyone to praise God, are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about.

My whole more general," I'm still quoting, "My whole more general difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us as regards the supremely valuable, what we delight to do, what indeed we can't help doing about everything else we value. I think we," and here's the nub of the matter, "I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not only expresses, but completes the enjoyment." Whoa.

It is, it's appointed consummation. It's not out of compliment that lovers go on telling one another how beautiful they are. The delight is incomplete till it is expressed. That's Reflections on the Psalms, 1958, pages 93 to 95. Do you see where that led me? Every time God commanded me to praise him for his glory, he was commanding me to bring my pleasure in him to its fullest delight.

That's what he was commanding. My pleasure in God is not complete unless it overflows in praise, and my praise of God is not glorifying to God unless it is the overflow of pleasure in God. God is not an egomaniac when he commands me to praise him. He's acting in love because my praising him is the apex of my pleasure in him.

What a discovery. So the answer to the question is, we should not, we dare not choose between praising God as an expression of the glory of God and praising God as an overflow of our pleasure in God. We dare not choose between those or separate those. And after 50 years of pondering this, I don't know any better way to say it than God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

If we try to choose between glorifying God and being glad in God, we will fail at both. The great discovery is that God has bound them together in his children forever. - Amen. An essential discovery with ramifications into all of life. Thank you, Pastor John, for giving your life to sharing this discovery with the world.

And thank you for joining us today. You can ask a question of your own, search our growing archive, or subscribe to the podcast. You can do all that at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn. I am your host, Tony Reiki. We'll see you back here on Monday. Have a great weekend. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)