Enjoying God: The Key to Christian Education

0:00 Would you pray with me? Whom have we in heaven but you? And on earth there is nothing that we desire besides you. Our flesh and our heart may fail, but you are the strength of our heart and our portion forever.

0:23 So I ask, Father, that you would come. I know that you can't make yourself any more glorious and satisfying than you are, but you can make us able to see it and to taste it as never before. And so I ask for your help in Jesus' name. Amen. So it is stunning. It is absolutely astonishing that the most well-known and well-respected catechism in the Reformed Christian tradition, of which I am happily a part, I mean, the Westminster Catechism begins by asserting that the human emotion of enjoyment has eternal ultimacy in the universe. That's amazing.

1:23 The question is, what is the chief end of man? chief, not secondary, not proximate, not subordinate, chief, final, ultimate end, and it answers, man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. not trust him forever not fear him forever not obey him forever not worship him forever or praise him forever or adore him forever but enjoy him Perhaps those 17th century divines thought that enjoyment was the essence of those other glorious heart acts. Perhaps.

2:27 I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy. Psalm 43. In your presence is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Psalm 16. Delight yourself in the Lord. Psalm 37. Be glad in the Lord. Psalm 32. Rejoice in the Lord. Philippians 3, 1. Perhaps those theologians and pastors believed that those texts, those realities, were the marrow of the greatest commandment, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, all your mind.

3:29 Perhaps. So it's stunning. It is stunning that this great catechism would begin by making an emotion. of enjoyment, the enjoyment of God,

3:51 the ultimate end of human experience. Now, it's stunning for three reasons. Number one, if those 17th century Puritans are right, I think they are, and I'm going to try to show it from the Bible, if they're right, and if man is the chief actor under God in the theater of creation, and I believe he is, then here's what they're saying. They are saying that alongside the glorification of God, the emotion of enjoyment, the enjoyment of God is the chief reason that all creation exists. that's stunning.

4:54 They are elevating the reality of human experience called enjoyment to supreme significance, supreme importance alongside the glorification of God. It's not a caboose at the end of the train of faith. It's not peripheral to what makes a person a Christian or human. It's not dispensable icing on the cake of commitment. It is not indispensable. It is evidently essential. It's not secondary to faith or obedience or hope or love.

5:50 Just think of it. Of all the human acts of the heart, of all the kinds of experience that the soul is capable of, they made enjoyment ultimate. an emotion, a feeling, an affection, pleasure, gladness, delight, the chief of every human experience forever. That's reason number one why it's stunning. Most people don't think in those categories. A human emotion is the ultimate reason for the universe. The second reason it's astonishing is that the first question of the catechism doesn't help us see how the glorification of God and the enjoyment of God relate.

7:15 Just puts them up there. Except in one way. it calls them chief end, not chief ends. That's significant and provocative and puzzling.

7:40 The question is not, what are man's chief ends? The question is, what is man's chief end? and the answer is in the singular. Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Go figure. which is what you teach your students to do, right? Puzzle.

8:10 What is that? Evidently, these theologians thought that somehow this glorification of God is a very enjoyable thing. and that this enjoyment is a very God-glorifying thing, perhaps. Third reason it's amazing. Thousands of people who love this catechism stumble over this reality, the ultimacy of the human emotion of enjoyment.

9:10 Reformed people are nervous. I dare say, Christian people, especially lovers of the life of the mind, which is what most of you probably are, are nervous with what I'm saying. This reality of the ultimacy of the emotion of the enjoyment of God has not, in my fallible perception, taken root nor borne the fruit that it should. Not in worship, not in obedience, not in education. It has not been taken nearly as seriously as it should. Some would say, if I ask, why is that?

10:12 Why is that? One answer might be, you just blow that first question off as a kind of a quirk of 17th century language, and you move on. Commitment. Faith. Obedience. Another reason might be that, and I think this is true, the personality of lovers of catechisms? tends to be governed by intellectual life so dominantly that the emotional life has atrophied.

11:08 It has. I see it everywhere. I do. It's very sad. I mean, there are all kinds of family reasons for that. DNA reasons for that, satanic reasons for that. There are all kinds of reasons for why people can't feel God. Most of the questions that come to APJ are about that. How can I? Some of you don't even know what I just meant by APJ. For others, the emotional excesses of revivalism, Pentecostalism, have made us resistant or hesitant to be all in with making emotion the ultimate purpose of the universe. So whatever the reason, it is stunning that many lovers of the Westminster Catechism are skittish about the emotions.

12:23 But it is not as though we don't have forefathers who were towering intellects and gave preeminence to the life of the heart. And, of course, we would all think of Augustine, right? His confessions virtually sing with the supremacy of joy in the Christian life. Listen, how sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose. You drove them from me. You who are the true sovereign joy. You drove them from me and took their place. You who are sweeter than all pleasure.

13:21 that's the way the greatest intellect in the history of the church spoke of emotion For me, as you heard in the introduction, perhaps it wasn't Augustine, it was Edwards. Another towering intellect who altered the way I see the universe and the importance of the affections, he said this, I should think myself in the way of my duty to raise the affections of my hearers as high as I possibly can, provided they are affected with nothing but truth and with affections that are not disagreeable to the nature of the truth with which they are affected.

14:32 I read that 40 years ago and said, that changes everything for a preacher. Good night, if that's true. So, with the quote of Augustine and Edwards as forefathers who were unashamed and not skittish about the supremacy of the enjoyment of God as the supreme reason for your existence, this message now takes a turn, and I want to answer three questions. Number one, is the elevation of the human emotion of enjoyment to the highest place as the chief end of human existence biblical and therefore true? Number two.

15:27 how is it related to the glorification of God? And three, how does this, the answer to verse two, shape classical Christian education? That's a tall order for the next 24 minutes. So let's condense. Take the first two questions really together. How is the enjoyment of God related to the glorification of God? And does that warrant its elevation? to the place of supreme reason for your existence. So let's stay with Edwards for a moment, then go to the Bible.

16:30 In my experience, and this started in the fall of 1968, In my experience, nobody has even come close to Jonathan Edwards in helping me. It's pretty much all I've thought about for 57 years. Nobody has come close to helping me like Edwards has in wrestling with these things and all their tentacles of implication.

17:07 So here's what he said. God glorifies himself toward the creatures in two ways. By appearing to their understanding, and in communicating himself to their hearts. He glorifies himself in their rejoicing and delighting in and enjoying the manifestations which he makes of himself. And then this key sentence. God is glorified not only by his glories being seen, but by its being rejoiced. it. When those that see it, I'm still reading Edwards, when those that see it, delight in it, God is more glorified than if they only see it. His glory is then received by the whole soul, both by the understanding and by the heart.

18:34 End of quotation. That may be the most important paragraph I have ever read outside the Bible. I've often said, books don't change people, paragraphs change people. That one did. And for those 57 years or so in between, All I've tried to do is observe, understand, evaluate, feel, apply, express the reality behind that paragraph. And being the mediocre amateur poet that I am, I thought it should rhyme. Hence the sentence, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

19:44 This is just little Piper chirping after Edwards. So, Edger's answer and my answer to the question of how the enjoyment of God relates to the glorification of God is that God is glorified when we are satisfied. They are significantly one thing in the sense that the enjoying of God is essential in your life.

20:20 Enjoying God is essential in your life if you would consciously make him look glorious in your life. Essential, not peripheral. Which is not to say, this is an important clarifying thing, sentence. I am not saying God would not be glorified if you turn from him and enjoy other things more. Oh, he would be. His justice would be glorified in your damnation. That's not what we're after in our students or ourselves, and therefore what we want to say is, if we do not glorify or enjoy him, if we do not enjoy him as he deserves, we won't glorify him as he deserves. So here's another little effort to be rhyming.

21:34 Our greatest treasure is made clear by what gives us most pleasure here. Our greatest treasure is made clear by what gives us most pleasure here. So I'm very happy to answer and paraphrase the first question of the catechism. The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever. Not and, by. because that's what I think they meant. And even if they didn't, I do. which doesn't matter at all, which is why we have to get to the Bible sooner or later.

22:37 If this is true now, if this is true, that God is glorified most in my being, most satisfied in him, if that's true, then the answer to our first question is yes, The catechism was right to elevate human emotion, the emotion of the enjoyment of God, to the highest place, because the glory of God holds the highest place. It's not a means to anything.

23:16 Woe to us if we try to turn worship into a means to fundraising or anything. Authentic worship at its essence is, God, you are the most precious reality in the world to me. That's the end. That's the end. That's not a means to anything. The supreme enjoyment of the supremely enjoyable cannot be calculating. as if it were a performance angling to get something better than God. There's nothing better than God, and the enjoyment of God is the end.

24:03 There's nothing after it. There's no means to anything. God glorified in my being satisfied is the end. Forever. and it will never get boring. That's one of the biggest issues for your 12-year-olds. That's going to be boring.

24:26 I lay down on the roof of my house when I was nine, looked into the stars. I was terrified at eternity, especially the vision at church. Like, oh, goodness, this is going to be so boring. that's your challenge right that's that's your job don't let that happen and you can't solve the problem by saying it's eternal baseball or saying to 40 year olds it's eternal golf you can't solve the problem that way it has to be a change of heart Thank you. In your presence is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. There is nothing fuller than full, and there's nothing longer than forever. And therefore, the enjoyment of God, the pleasures at his right hand for his glory are not only the best end of human existence, they are the best imaginable end. The question is, is it true? I keep asserting that it's true.

25:52 Is it? Is it biblical? Or let's refine the question just a little bit because the theme of this conference is the preeminence of Christ, whose name I don't think I've mentioned yet. Odd. Is Christ most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him? Is that a different question? it isn't.

26:28 Because he said, whoever has seen me has seen the Father. John 14. He prayed, Father, glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you. I glorified you on the earth, having accomplished the work you gave for me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the foundation of the world. Oh, my goodness, this is glorious. Those are not separate questions. The first sentence on the webpage, I wonder who wrote it, that advertised this conference is, classical Christian education is ultimately about the glory of God through Christ. That's why I'm preaching what I'm preaching, because of that sentence.

27:27 I said, okay, I got it. Green light. The glory of God through Jesus Christ. That's exactly right, because Jesus said, whoever does not honor the Son does not honor him who sent him, which means there is no glorification of God that is not a glorification of Christ. There's no such thing. Other religions are not true. who do not glorify Jesus Christ.

28:06 Very controversial position in our day. Get you killed in some places. So I ask again, is it biblical? I keep putting off the question. Get it. Come on. Matthew 10. I'm going to let Jesus talk and then let Paul talk. And I said, this is condensed. We've got books about this. If you need books, paragraphs.

28:36 Matthew 10, 37. This is Jesus. Whoever loves mother or father more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Some people are so resistant to the implication of that sentence spoken by our Lord Jesus that they try to define love as mere acts of obedience. If you love me, you will keep my commandments, which they take to be a definition, not a result, which is absolutely not what it says. We don't love our children like that.

29:33 we feel strong affections for our children. We count our children and feel them precious. And so Jesus is saying, I must be more precious to you. I must be more precious to you. I must be a greater treasure to you than your children and your parents, or you're not mine. Matthew 10 verse 37 Why would he say that? Why would he say that devastating sentence? because treasuring Christ above all is how we glorify Christ above all.

30:40 Embracing him as more precious than anything is how we make him look more glorious than anything. This is Jesus. It's not me. It's not Edwards. Let's let Paul put an exclamation point on it. I love the Apostle Paul. I wrote a whole book called Why I Love the Apostle Paul. I have a Rembrandt of Paul hanging in my attic place where I jog in the morning. Because I love him. I love him. after Jesus, I love Paul more than anybody.

31:27 Noelle, five kids. I love him, just no comparison, right? And one of the reasons I love him is because of the book 2 Corinthians and the sufferings that he endured and the model that he gave me how to be content in all things.

31:52 So you know the story. He had this vision in the third heaven. He didn't even know if it was bodily or not. and to keep him from being conceited, God gives him, through a satanic messenger, a thorn in the flesh. We don't know what it was, but clearly thorns hurt, so it hurt. And he asked Jesus three times, please take it away, and Jesus says no, and he says no for this reason. My grace is sufficient for you, My power is perfected in weakness.

32:38 So the grace of Jesus and the power of Jesus are on display in Paul's pain, thorn pain. but it's not automatic, is it? I mean, what if Paul had said, I'm done? I hate this. If that's the way you treat your faithful messengers, I'm out of here. Like a lot of people say that. What if he grumbled? What if he complained? That wouldn't make Jesus look great. So everything hung on how he responded in his heart to the thorn and the promise, my grace and my power are about to be on display in your life, if, if what? And here's how he responds. Verse 9, therefore, this is chapter 12, verse 9 in this precious book of 2 Corinthians, therefore, I will boast all the more gladly, You know what the Greek word is there?

33:54 Hadista. You know the word we get from that? Hedonism. I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses and in this crucial logical connector, which is what you teach your students to look for. so that the power of Christ would rest on me. What does that mean? If I were to bellyache, if I were to complain, if I were to be resentful and angry and bitter at Jesus because of this thorn, he gets no glory. No power, no grace is magnified by my angry response to my suffering. But if I could receive his discipline and gladly, gladly rest in the supremacy of his grace and supremacy of his power in my life, it would be so that his power would rest on me like the Shekinah glory and people would know, Whoa! Jesus is precious to Paul. He's glorious to Paul.

35:20 I think that text and numerous others show it is biblical to say Christ is most glorified in Paul when Paul is most satisfied in him in his suffering.

35:43 That's my life. That's all I want to teach. That's what I write books about. That's what I'd like to shape. your education with. So, to conclude the first two, and then briefly on the last one. I'm arguing that it is thoroughly biblical and true that Christ is most glorified in us when we're most satisfied in him. God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. That it is right to paraphrase the first question of the catechism, that chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever. and therefore it is right for them to elevate the human emotion of enjoyment to the place of the highest position, namely the chief end of human existence.

36:45 Final question. How does that shape your classical Christian education? Which it will if it takes root in your life. I had lunch with Russ Gregg last week. Founded Hope Academy, six blocks from my house. We've been friends for a long time. And I asked him, give me a fresh statement of what's classical Christian education. and he said, number one, first thing out of his mouth was an unapologetic aim at shaping students' character.

37:36 Second, a focus on goodness, beauty, and truth. Third, the preeminence of Christ as the beginning and the sum and end of all that. And we stop there. And I added, and there's some subject matter, right? Like, doesn't matter. I mean, he didn't say it doesn't matter. I'm saying, after those three are in place, teach anything. But there are some helpful subject matters, and you know what they are. reading, writing, arithmetic, you know, languages. So, in these last... I'm going to take more than one minute and 42 seconds, but not much more. I'm going to focus on character formation. What is it, character formation? It is breaking the power of sin in your students' lives, and it is unleashing the goodness of love. That's one way to describe character formation. Kill sin, advance love. What are the sins you want to kill in their lives? Pride. Here's the seven deadly sins. Pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, anger, sloth. Every one of the deadly sins, the seven deadly sins, are a heart craving, not just a mental idea or thought.

38:59 Right? Pride, the cravings have run amok. They've gotten all out of proportion to reality. So pride craves praise. Greed craves money. Lust craves sexual stimulation. Envy craves the failure of others. Gluttony craves food. Anger craves vengeance. Sloth craves ease.

39:28 How are you going to sever the root of those craving, those desires, those enjoyment? your students have to be born again by the living and abiding word, the gospel. They have to embrace the lordship of Jesus, that he's their savior, that he's their treasure.

39:51 They must taste the sweetness of forgiveness of their sins through Christ. They need to enjoy the right standing before God on the basis of faith, And they need to come into a sweet, precious experience of the friendship of Jesus, the enjoyment of God. That's going to happen. And then, how does it work? And we've already heard how it works. Augustine, how sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose. Your kids are afraid to lose all their precious sins. They're afraid. You drove them from me, you who are the true, the sovereign joy. You drove them from me and took their place, you who are sweeter than all pleasure. The power of the pleasure of sin is broken by the power of a superior pleasure, or it's not a gospel breaking.

40:59 It's going to be legalism. Here's what Jesus said, the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field which a man found and from his joy, people go fly over that statement, from his joy sells everything that he has and buys that field. What does that mean? everything, everything in his life, the love for it is broken.

41:30 I count everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. Thomas Chalmers called it the expulsive power of a new affection. It's a great sermon. If that's how God-demeaning people-destroying deadly sins are broken, by the power of a superior pleasure, how is love unleashed? Here's Paul. Last text.

42:08 In a severe test of affliction, this is chapter 8 of my precious 2 Corinthians, chapter 8, verse 2, in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy. Now, in the context, verse 1 has stated that this joy is in the superabounding grace of God. So, the grace has come down and the joy has come up like the song says.

42:41 Maybe they don't sing that anymore I'm old In a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy in the grace of God and their extreme poverty overflowed in a wealth of generosity. In verse 8, six verses later, Paul calls that love. So where does love come from? It comes as the overflow of joy in God which meets the needs of others. That's my definition of love. Love is the overflow of joy in God that meets the needs of others. Or to be more precise, love is the built-in impulse inside the enjoyment of God. There's an impulse.

43:35 It was there in the Trinity, which is why the world was created, I believe. There's a built-in impulse in the enjoyment of God that will expand to include others in it. Even if it costs you your life, which it did, Jesus. So my answer to the question is that the formation of your students' character in the killing of sin and the unleashing of love will happen as they come to enjoy God the way they should. Conclusion. The enjoyment of God is indeed rightly called the chief end of human existence because it is not only the essence and marrow of all other God-exalting acts, but also because it is the power by which the bondage of sin is broken, and the power of love is unleashed, and therefore it is the key to all Christian character formation, and therefore it is the key to all classical Christian learning.

45:00 Father, I pray that to the degree that this message is true, that tens of thousands of students would feel the ripple effect of the embrace of the supreme importance of the enjoyment of your beauty and your goodness and your power and your wisdom in the lives of these administrators and teachers and friends.

45:28 I ask this in Jesus' name as we linger in silence for a moment.