I Want You to Be a Christian Hedonist

0:00 It is a great joy and honor to be here with you and to be brought into worship by singing together with you to our Savior and Andy's prayer brought me into worship. that we read from Psalm 16 and from Matthew 13, which is a great setup because I want to talk about joy this morning and read you here in just a minute one of my favorite chapters in all the Bible. You can go ahead and go there, Isaiah 55. If you'd like a Bible, we've got them right here at the back. If you need a copy, oh, so good to have paper, you know, in this digital age to have paper in front of us. If you'd like a Bible, they're handing them out. Now, I know that when I come in here as a guest from out of town to talk about joy, I realize that in any gathering of this size, people are all over the map. I know there's some golden retrievers in here who are just kind of like, whatever the pastor wants to talk about, let's do it. Let's do it. Let's go. Let's talk about joy. Isaiah 55 is great. And we have others who are more Eeyore-like. If you're a Winnie the Pooh fan, Eeyore's like, all right, talk about joy. And there's different circumstances in our lives.

1:21 Some of you are in a season of sorrow, I'm sure. And I'm not talking about a joy this morning that is mutually exclusive with sorrow. I'm going to talk about a joy that's deeper than, a joy that will sustain you in sorrow, a joy that will let you feel and grieve the burdens of real life sorrow in a real way, going through a season of suffering. The joy we have to talk about this morning is not mutually exclusive of suffering, but sustains us in the hardest parts of our lives. Now, some of us have this term for talking about the centrality of joy in the Christian life. Psalm 16, Matthew 13, 44, and Isaiah 55. We like to call this Christian hedonism. That's a provocative term because hedonism, strictly speaking, if we're talking about a philosophy of life that treats personal, immediate pleasure as the highest good and proper aim of life, that's emphatically not Christian. But if hedonism means something more general, like a life devoted to the pursuit of pleasure, that more general definition might give us a little room to add that qualifier Christian, Christian hedonism. And here's my hope. This is our hope at Desiring God in the ministry that we do as we go about and teach and do books and speak. Our hope is that that provocative term might give some insight into an essential aspect of true Christianity.

3:13 the kind of Christianity we read about in Matthew 13 44 and Psalm 16 if you don't like the term Christian hedonism that's okay I'm not pushing for you to adopt the term but I pray that in these next few moments you'll see an essential central biblical emphasis that Christian hedonism highlights and that that provocative term might highlight a reality that would make you fresh appreciate the goodness of our God, the sort of God he is, the kind of God he is, as Andy led us in prayer about so well. But you don't have to take my term and make it your own.

4:01 For instance, with this hedonistic aspect of the Christian faith, we have at the very center of our faith, Jesus. Now, Jesus was a man of sorrows. And Hebrews 12 tells us that Jesus endured the cross for the joy that was set before him. And Jesus, in his teaching over and over again, he emphasizes the reward. Your father who sees in secret will reward you. Your reward In heaven is great. Nobody talked about reward as much as Jesus. C.S. Lewis talked about the unblushing promises of reward in the Gospels, in the teaching of Jesus. And when Paul came to summarize Jesus' teaching in Acts 20, verse 35, he says, Remember the words of Jesus, how he himself said it's more blessed, happier.

5:04 It's more blessed to give than to receive. That's an appeal to our joy. It's an appeal to spiritual pleasure. Jesus appeals to your joy. That's how he endured the cross for the joy set before him. What about the Apostle Paul? Paul said, very memorably in Philippians chapter 1, To me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. that's a hedonistic word gain you mean you're after your gain Paul yeah I'm after my gain I'm willing to die for this gain that's how good this gain is the gain of knowing Jesus Christ which he talks about in Philippians 3 I count everything as loss compared to the surpassing worth that's gain the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord. And this morning we turn to Isaiah chapter 55. Isaiah who says, come all who are thirsty, come and drink from the waters, come and eat. Let me just say before reading the text, which I'm looking forward to, I'm going to take my time, I'm going to enjoy reading Isaiah 55.

6:23 I hope you enjoy Isaiah 55. This is going to be an unusual sermon. It is not just a straight exposition of Isaiah 55, I hope that you'll see for yourself that this pursuit of joy in God to the glory of God is here in Isaiah 55 and in Paul and in Hebrews and in Jesus' teaching. And I plan to word these points. You got the points there in your worship folder? and a word these points in such a way that these are whole Bible truths that we can see rooted in Isaiah 55. All right, so here's Isaiah 55. the whole chapter.

10:06 So Father in heaven, as we come to your word this morning, I pray that you would send your spirit in power. Would the Spirit accompany the living Word, give it life in our souls, and satisfy our hunger in Jesus, and our thirst in the one who is the living water. Give us clarity in our thoughts. Feed our hearts for our lives and our callings. And would you make much of your Son in our midst. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

10:48 So, I want you to be a Christian hedonist, even if you don't call it that. And to that effect, let me point your attention to three life-giving truths in Isaiah 55. You already know what they are because they're in the worship folder. Number one, God made the world and you for his glory.

11:15 Go to the last verse, verse 13. This is a glimpse of the end. This is the new heavens and the new earth that God's going to bring about. So it was future for Isaiah. This is still future for us. And it shows us what God's been up to from the beginning. Look at verse 13. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress. Instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle. And it shall make a name for the Lord. an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

11:49 All right, so that mention there of thorns and briars, does that bring anything else to mind? What do we think of thorns in the Bible? Two places, right? One on Jesus' head. And the other's the curse after Adam and Eve sinned. Genesis 3.18, Cursed be the ground because of you, Adam. thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you. So thorns are a mark of God's curse on the creation because of human sin.

12:27 And in Isaiah's vision here of the new earth, he sees that instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress. Instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle. Cypresses and myrtles are evergreens The vision is that thorns and thistles These marks of the curse Get in our way and poke us Might make us bleed Make life uncomfortable They will be replaced by evergreens And the point is not horticulture The point is it will show the greatness of God through the thriving of his people.

13:13 The cursed creation is reflecting the state of the people. The renewed creation is supplementing, applauding the state of the people himself. That is to glorify himself. That's why he made the world to begin with. And that's why he will remake the world when Jesus returns. So in Isaiah chapter 43, God says to his people, bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, the same name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made. So God's people, he says, are for his glory, for his name, and his world in all he made, and all of history is for his glory. perhaps you've heard that phrase the glory of god so often that it can kind of become white noise i grew up in church a good church and you can't get it all you go up in church age four you can't understand it all age four age eight age 12 you grow up into it so glorious blessed realities can be white noise to your ears for a time until god's spirit awakens you to the truth of it So I remember as a kid singing about God's glory all the time.

14:35 To God be the glory, great things he has done. Or in my life, Lord, be glorified. I can keep going. We sang over and over about the glory of God when I was growing up. I didn't get it. I just thought it was throwaway language, just this kind of Christian talk. I didn't get the meaning in it, the concept in it. I got older, and the Holy Spirit helped open my eyes while reading the Bible. You can see the glory of God everywhere in the Bible. His glory, His name, His praise, His honor, overlapping realities. He created for His glory. He sent Jesus for His glory. Jesus went to the cross for the glory of God.

15:29 And then we find out for his own glory, rose again in glory, he rescues us for his glory, and he'll remake the world for his glory. So as a Massachusetts pastor named Jonathan Edwards said 300 years ago, all that is ever spoken of in the scripture as an ultimate end of God's works is included in that one phrase, the glory of God. Now, if you want to know the real God, you need to know that he does all he does for his glory. And he means for his creatures to consciously live our lives for his glory, as you state so well in your church's mission. 1 Corinthians 10 31 whether you eat whether you drink whatever you do do all to the glory of God and we'll come back to verse 13 here in just a few moments because we need to ask what the it is you've got an ESV you can see it there in verse 13 there's an it in verse 13 what is the it that glorifies the Lord we need to figure that out but number one here God made the world and you and he will one day remake the world for his glory.

16:54 He does all he does for his glory. Number two, God made you to long for and seek satisfaction. He made you to desire happiness. It's design, not defect. You want to be happy. You long to be happy. You seek unavoidably to find satisfaction. Blaise Pascal is famous for saying it as are other philosophers many philosophers arrive here and say something like this as they observe their own hearts observe human behavior Pascal said famously all men seek happiness this is without exception whatever different means they employ they all tend to this end the cause of some going to war and of others avoiding it is the same desire for happiness in both attended with different views. The will never takes the least step to this object. This is the motive of action of every person.

17:53 God made you like that. He made you to want joy, to long to be happy, and you cannot avoid it. Whatever strange means you take up to seek it. And that longing is not bad. It's good. that's what's clear as day in Isaiah 55 as God makes his appeals to our happiness God would not talk like he does in Isaiah 55 if he hadn't designed us for this you know what good news it is that God talks like this in verses 1 to 3 it means he intends to give fresh living water to thirsty souls. He means to give warm, soul-satisfying bread for your hunger.

18:52 to the sort of God he is. he's not the sort of God who drops in and says, hey, stop being thirsty down there. What's going on? Hey, stop your hunger. Stop desiring. Stop living out of your heart and wanting things. Rather, he says, be hungry. Be thirsty. I made you like that. That's my design. that I might satisfy your hungry heart. The problem with humanity is not that we desire the problem is not that we hunger and that we thirst. The problem is called sin, is that we take the desire and the thirst and hunger meant for God and try to find satisfaction in things that do not satisfy,

20:00 as verse 2 says. In the words of C.S. Lewis, we are far too easily pleased Thank you. the opening verses of Isaiah 55 picture a street vendor. I don't know if you've got street vendors in Pepperill. I know there's street vendors in Boston, right? You know, walking up and down Fenway Park trying to sell you a hot dog. We came across a street vendor as a family outside the Minnesota State Fair in August. It's a hot day. August can be hot, even in Minnesota. and we come out of the state fair and the street vendors have gathered. There's competing street vendors. They can't get into the fair. They don't have license to be inside the fair, but they're right outside. It's a hot day and very kindly, half a dozen different parties want to sell me water right outside the door. But one guy stood out. He said, you got a thirst? Come to me first.

21:01 I'm your water guy. I like that. As a pastor, as someone who works with words, I like he's doing a rhyme. Got a thirst? Come to me first. If I was going to buy water, I was going to buy it from him. He was a good street vendor. Imagine God as a street vendor. That's what Isaiah 55 is. Lifting up his voice saying, you got a thirst? Is anybody thirsty? I know you are. I made you to be thirsty. Anyone hungry? I made you to be hungry. And I've got a feast. And I want to offer your soul. If you're thirsty, come get my cold, clear, refreshing water. If you need strength, I have vitamin-rich milk.

22:01 If you want joy, I have exhilarating wine on offer. And the cost has been covered. not because it's cheap bread or milk or wine. It's the best.

22:21 It's costly. And I've covered the cost. I offer it to you without money and without price. The verse 2 tells us why we would come for the bread, for the water, for the milk, for the wine. We want to be satisfied. God made us to hunger for happiness, for satisfaction. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? So number one, God made the world and you for his glory. Number two, God also made you to long for and seek satisfaction. These two truths, you're made to seek his glory, and made to seek your joy are as clear as day in Scripture. Cross Scripture and Isaiah 55.

23:21 And now we get to the heart of what Christian hedonism claims in number three. Number three, these are not two pursuits, but one. This is such good news. These two things come together. God made us and means for us to pursue his glory and God made us and means for us to pursue our holy joy and these two truths come together in this amazing reality that God is glorified in us he makes a name for himself as verse 13 says through our rejoicing and being satisfied in him God's name lifted up him glorified through our finding joy in him let me come at this truth from from two different sides all right you can come from the human satisfaction side I want to be satisfied I want to seek my joy or you can come at this from the God's glory aspect he means to be glorified he made the world to be glorified and us to be glorified let me come at it from those two angles. First, about our satisfaction. God made our souls to be satisfied in Him. That in Him is so important. Previously, we just said He made us for satisfaction. Now I'm saying He made us to be satisfied in Him.

24:53 Verse 3, come to me, he says. Verse 6, seek the Lord, it says. Verse 7, return to the Lord and to our God. God's appeal in Isaiah 55 is not, hey, you do you. The appeal is, come to me. I've got the satisfaction. I've got the joy. I've got the bread. I've got the happiness here. God Himself is the feast of Isaiah 55.

25:28 And the fullness and the freeness and the foreverness of this feast means it only could be God. The feast is full. Water for refreshment. Milk for nourishment. Wine for exhilaration. Bread to satisfy hunger. Rich food to fill the stomach and satisfy the palate. This is not an appetizer. This is not even a single entree. This is a full banquet for the soul. There's fullness in this offer. And there's freeness.

26:04 No money is required. In fact, no money is accepted. Don't insult the chef by bringing your money to this feast that he's purchased for you. not because the food is cheap it's costly it is rich fair and it's been paid for you so you can buy and eat and buy wine and milk without money and without cost we'll come back to that and it's forever it's full it's free and it's forever he says in verse three i will make with you an everlasting covenant. That's so good. It's an everlasting covenant relationship with the God who himself is the feast and provides the feast of water and milk and wine and bread that will never run out.

26:57 this table will never be empty God's table will never even be thinned out because others have feasted that's the promise in verses 10 to 11 as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth making it spring forth and sprout giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty. It shall accomplish that which I purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

27:44 And what's that purpose in Isaiah 55? What's the thing that he sends out the word of his invitation to accomplish? amazingly the satisfaction of his people's hunger the slaking of his people's thirst and that to the glory of his name so the satisfaction god offers in himself is free and full and forever and that brings us back to the question how does this lavish feast get paid for and so in the first regard that's the strange mention in verses four and five in the verse three in the verse 45 four and five of david you're like where did david come from all of a sudden david's in the psalm and then he addresses david in verses four and five now david had long died by the time isaiah was around he's addressing the offspring of David. He's addressing the one the Jews called the Messiah, this great king who would come in David's line, who would be a leader for all the peoples, whom God would glorify. Verse 5.

28:59 And to raise the stakes here, it's not as this offer of this relationship and this feast is going out to good people. all this offer, he says, is not to the righteous and deserving, but it's to the unrighteous and the wicked. To sinners. He has come to call sinners in Isaiah 55. Look at verse 7. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. verse 2 also says that those to whom this invitation goes out have been the ones who've spent their money on things that don't satisfy they spent their energy their labors their thoughts their hearts their lives on what's not bread which is not only foolish it's wicked This is not just dumb.

30:05 It's evil. But Jeremiah says, Be appalled, O heavens, at this. Be shocked. Be utterly desolate. For my people have committed two evils. They've forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and hewed out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. It's not only stupid to turn from the life-giving water of God and try to make our own water to the side. It's evil. we're evil. We do this as sinners. how can it be that such an offer of fullness and freeness and relationship forever can go out to such sinners? And the answer is that the invitation of Isaiah 55 comes on the heels of the substitution of Isaiah 53.

31:09 God's servant was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And by His wounds, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to His own way. and the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. And so because of the servant, the suffering servant, verse 7 can say to sinners, to the wicked, to the unrighteous, return to the Lord and he will have compassion on you. come to our God for he will abundantly pardon literally this is he has a multitude of forgivenesses this is the sort of God he is one who has a multitude of forgivenesses he is one who abundantly pardons who multiplies mercy this is the kind of God who himself could be our satisfaction So first there, God made us to be satisfied in him.

32:34 And then the second angle we come at it from is his glorification. Our satisfaction in God glorifies him. That is, it makes him look good. Our joy in God makes a name for God. And so we come back to verse 13. We start with verse 12. for you shall go out in joy. What's the joy? It's the delight he's offering in verses one to two. You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace. The mountains and the hills before you shall break forth in singing and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress. instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle and it there's the it what's that it it shall make a name for the Lord an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off what is the it that makes a name for God that glorifies Him is not just the reversing of the curse.

33:49 It's not just the replacing of thorns with evergreens. And it's not just the majestic mountains and towering trees of the new creation. The singing mountains and the clapping trees are supplements. They're augmenting something. They're adorning. They're reflecting. They're accenting something. what verse 12 you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace you you who who's the you well it's you thirsty who came to the waters it's the hungry who came to god's feast it's the wicked and unrighteous who received abundant mercy without money and without cost because of the costly work of the servant you shall go out in joy Okay.

34:50 What does it mean to go out? Where are they going? Going out of what? Go out from the slavery of sin. Like God's people went out from slavery in Egypt. You go out in joy. Like God's people in exile went out in joy from Babylon. You go out from sin's misery and go out in joy and peace. And all this, God's happy, satisfied people at the center, serenaded by the hills and applauded by the trees, this makes a name for God. In other words, our joy in Him shows what kind of God He is. Our joy in Him glorifies Him, makes a name for Him.

35:46 or as we love to say it, desiring God. God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. And get this, almost done. if God's purpose to be glorified and my desire to be satisfied are one,

36:11 then that means that with all the omnipotent energy of God Almighty with which he pursues his glory, he is also pursuing my everlasting joy in him with that same strength. and zeal. but you might say as we close here okay that's all well and good but what about right now in my messy life you said isaiah 55 is a glimpse of the future it's the glimpse of the end the new heavens the new earth all right you're christian hedonism maybe it works in the future What about now? I got sorrows now. I have a messy life now.

37:04 I got anxieties. I have suffering. What about right now in this fallen world? with a heart that is so fickle, with joy that feels so thin at times. the offer of Isaiah 55, while pointing to the fullness of the future, is an offer right now. There is an already to the offer and a not yet to the offer. A day is coming when he'll wipe away every tear. You will see how every ounce of suffering mindful of him has not been wasted. Your anxieties will be resolved.

37:57 The mess of your life will be cleaned up in the new heavens and new earth. And he will be glorified indeed. And he'll make a name for himself too as you battle with sorrows, as you feel their weight all the way down, as you endure in suffering. Not because you have now a fullness of joy that can't be touched. It can. It's under assault. But because you're walking in pursuit of joy, you're finding joy in him in some real measures as you go through the Christian life, even though you're not home yet. So let me end by being a street vendor one more time. Brothers and sisters, listen up. Pay attention. Here's the offer.

38:49 This is a real offer. It's real now. And it will be full forever. Does your soul thirst? Do you hunger? Jesus says, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. And he says, I am the bread of life. whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst and amazingly this is where the Bible ends did you know that? you know the Bible ends with Isaiah 55 I mean Revelation 22 but verse 17 quotes Isaiah 55 let the one who is thirsty come let the one who desires take the water of life without price.

39:48 so I want you to be a Christian hedonist whether you call it that or not and I want you to come with me to God in Jesus Christ to satisfy your soul in real measure now and in fullness forever come to his word to feast and find joy come to prayer to be refreshed and strengthened come to worship to feast and be nourished and satisfied in Him. And in our joy, even now, in this fallen age, in our satisfaction, in our delight in Him, even as imperfect and embattled as it is, He is honored. He's exalted. He's glorified. Because God is most glorified in us when we're most satisfied in Him. Let's pray.

40:41 So Father in heaven, what a testimony to the sort of God you are, the kind of God you are, that you would glorify yourself through making your people be satisfied, be happy, be blessed, be joyful in you. And Father, we know there's not a easy direct line from conversion to glory in the Christian life. we live in challenges in strugglings in sorrows in sufferings we don't have joy only but in Jesus we have a deep joy we have a sustaining joy we have a joy deeper than sorrow and suffering that will get us through the challenges through the obstacles through the friction of this life and so father would you glorify yourself make a name for yourself in pepper all through these men and women satisfied in you beneath and through their sorrows and sufferings.

41:52 And Father, we look to the day where every tear will be gone. Every suffering will be resolved. And what a name and glory we will celebrate together in joy. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.