The Only Life Worth Living: A Live Lab on Christian Hedonism

0:00 I just read a survey that in the last 20 years, the number of people who answered the survey, I am experiencing the lowest happiness on your choices, has increased by 50%. So unhappiness, according to this survey in America, has skyrocketed in the last 20 years. Now that's perhaps good news because that survey did not mean 20 years ago, millions of people found deep, sweet, soul-satisfying happiness in God and now they don't. That's not what the survey meant. This survey was not inquiring about happiness in God. What the survey meant was 20 years ago, millions of people found some happiness in this world, in things of the world, and today they find less. And that may be good because if you find less happiness, which you desperately want more of, in the world you just might turn to God.

1:41 So for the last 57 years, I have devoted most of my time to ransacking the Bible. and human experience in order to understand the relationship between human happiness and the glory of God. And the upshot of that, the teachings of the Bible and human experience, we now call Christian hedonism. We're going to look at definitions and foundations of Christian hedonism, vertical and horizontal. That's where we're going. So Father, I ask for your help now so that I'm clear and helpful and that understanding would be granted, especially when we turn to your word and that you would reveal the greatness of your glory and how it reveals or relates to our happiness.

3:06 Pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Hedonism. In my Webster's 1963 high school dictionary definition number two, a life devoted to pleasure. I buy it. That's what I mean by it. A life devoted to pleasure is what I mean by hedonism. Christian hedonism is a life devoted to the fullest and the longest pleasure, namely, pleasure in God. And I say that because of Psalm 1611. In your presence, God, is fullness of joy and at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. And I've stood before many audiences and said without the slightest fear that it would happen. Anybody in this audience who comes to me after this session and can show me a better happiness than I have in God, I will cease to be a Christian.

4:30 I'll just stop and go your way. But it is not only unlikely that you will do that, it is inconceivable that you would do that because there isn't anything fuller than full or longer than forever. I'm safe. This is serious. This is really awesome. I mean, if you are banking on a pleasure that's less than full and less than forever, you're crazy. I mean, Tony's whole message was, don't do that. The world is screaming at you. Look at me. I made everything, and it's glorious.

5:14 Don't waste your life. That's my definition of Christian hedonism. A life devoted to the fullest and longest pleasure, namely pleasure in God. Vertical. What do I mean by that? Vertical Christian hedonism. God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. That's vertical Christian hedonism. I mean like this. So here's me and here's God and God is in pursuit of his glory. I'm in pursuit of my happiness and Christian hedonism discovers in the Bible that he is most glorified in me when I'm most satisfied in him, I'm home. I'm home. My question is over. His glory magnified.

6:06 My soul satisfied. It is over. horizontal About 1977 maybe I was still at Bethel and I was wrestling in these formative years of forming my thinking biblically about this with how this vertical reality doesn't just leave me like a cross-legged Buddha saying go to hell world I don't care me and God we're good If that were the case, if this vertical reality didn't somehow release horizontal love for people, I know it must be false.

7:02 because the Bible is just so shot through with love as the aim of God's commandments. Love fulfills the whole law. If your vertical hedonism is just going to turn you into a recluse where you and God are super happy, it can't be true. It can't be biblical. So, over the years, I began to see how it works from the Bible. And here's the way I put it. Vertical satisfaction in God expands by including others in it, even if it costs us our lives. I'm going to give you text for that.

7:59 I didn't make that up. That'll come straight out of 2 Corinthians, and you'll see it with your own eyes. But those are summaries. So I'm going to spend a text on this one and a text on this one, and that'll fill up our time. Okay? If I expand here, I mean this joy that I have in God becomes bigger when I step out of my comfort zones of earthly satisfaction and am willing to lay down my life to include your happiness in my happiness so that your happiness in God becomes my happiness in God and mine is bigger, it's bigger.

8:45 Which means if I'm a Christian hedonist, a life devoted to pleasure, I'm gonna lay down my life for you. And if I don't, if I'm not willing to embrace the pain of love, I'm a fake. Just me and God, we're a fake. Okay, so horizontal hedonism super matters. The Bible presents love as the litmus test. You don't know God if you don't love people, 1 John says. Okay, therefore, we're almost ready. One more and we're going to do texts. The radical pursuit of joy in God is a Christian duty. So my little book, my little book is the dangerous duty of delight. To the extent that we try to abandon the pursuit of our own pleasure, which is what so many ethicists tell you to do, because you can't do anything right if you do it for your own joy.

9:49 I saw that all over the place when I was doing graduate work in ethics. Enemy love. To the extent that you try to abandon the pursuit of your own pleasure, we will fail to glorify God, vertical, and we will fail to love people. That is a crazy radical statement. If you try to abandon your pursuit of pleasure in God, you can't worship and you can't do anything right. Wow, really? Or that's negative, here's positive. The pursuit of pleasure in God is a necessary part of all worship and virtue. Worship becomes defective, virtue becomes defective to the degree that you are not pursuing and finding your pleasure in God. Just see what happens on Sunday morning if you tell people to do what they do out of duty and not out of delight. It ruins the whole thing. Same thing when you visit the hospital and say to the poor person in the hospital bed, I didn't really want to come but I had to because I'm a pastor.

11:06 See how that goes down in terms of creating a sense of being loved. But if If I say to her, him, I'm here because frankly, though I wanted to be playing with my kids a half an hour ago to drive here and be the instrument of your happiness in God makes me glad.

11:32 I've seen it. I've seen it in their faces. I'm glad you're being here to help me makes you glad. that's real love. Okay, so that's a setup for the text and here's the vertical text. well a lot of good that did I never know how to work this thing I thought I was going to keep myself within time limits so somebody just tell me when to stop all right because I had said it for 40 minutes and they told me I could have 45 and I want to take 45 so David you're on next so you should be serious Please. It is my eager expectation and hope. Paul writing through the Philippians, I love this text, I preached on it at the beginning of my ministry here. It is my eager expectation and hope. So those are very similar words, right? A hope-filled expectation, an expectant hope, just one big, this is what I want to happen in my life.

12:41 This is why texts like this would grab me because I want my life to count, right? I want to do what the Bible says really matters doing. And that's what this is. It is my eager expectation and hope, what? That I will negatively not at all be ashamed, positively, but with full courage now as always, Christ will be magnified. my expectation, right? You with me? My passion, my expectation, my hope is so that in all my bodily life, whatever I do with this body, whether I'm smiling or talking or sleeping or waking or running or eating or anything I do with my body, my entire bodily life, I want Christ to be made to look magnificent. Is that a fair paraphrase? Magnified? Megaluno in Greek. Can you even hear it, right?

13:46 Megalunthesitai. Christ be magnified. Made to look magnificent in your life. That's why you're on the planet. That's why the clouds are on the planet. The sun is on the planet. All the creation that Tony talked about is just screaming, he's magnificent. And that's what your life is for. Paul said, that's what I want to happen. My eager expectation and hope is that Christ would be magnified. So I said I spent 57 years trying to ransack the Bible to understand the relationship between the glory of God and the happiness of man and now I've got the glory piece right here in front of me. This is glory. You could just say glorified, right? Glorified. Shown to be glorious. All right, so if that's what he's saying, will he give me a clue as the text unfolds how that happens?

14:52 And he does. So, I want Christ to be shown to be magnificent in my body, my bodily life, whether by life or by death. So, if I live, I want to live in such a way that Christ looks magnificent. If I die, I want to die in such a way that in my dying I make him look magnificent. That's what he's saying. Now, here comes this important word, for. Make a lot of for's around here, and therefore's, and in order that. Four, meaning I'm gonna support what I just said. I'm gonna give an explanatory ground and show you why this works, why Christ will be magnificent as I die, and why Christ will be magnificent as I live. I'm gonna show you with this four.

16:05 Because, for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. That's his argument so far. And it doesn't work so far. It doesn't hang together. I mean just try to state the premises of the argument to yourself because this is an argument. My expectation and longing and hope is that Christ would be magnified in my body in the way I die because to die is gain. That doesn't make any sense. There's a missing premise. You've got to have another premise to make that work.

17:01 I mean, you could say, my death is gain because I'm so depressed. I'd just like to be out of here. I mean, seriously, to call death gain is not to magnify Jesus. There are all kinds of reasons why people consider death gain, and it doesn't make anything of Jesus. This is not an argument that's going to work. Yet. He's not done. You got to always keep reading to make things work in the Bible. So let's be sure we see that he has continued to pick up on by life and by death by saying, for to me to live, that picks up on life, and to death is picked up on die. So he's clearly thinking this through. I want Christ to be magnified by my life.

17:56 I want Christ to be magnified by my death. And the reason he's going to be magnified by my life is that to live is Christ. Now, that would make pretty good sense. We'll come back to that second. And I want to make much of Christ by my dying and my death, because to die is gain. That's the way it's going to work. Dying experienced as gain will make much of Jesus. if there's another premise. So let's read the premise.

18:34 If I'm to live in the flesh, that's fruitful labor for me. We're going to come back to that later. That's the live part. He's got lots to say about that in the subsequent verses. Right now I'm interested in how does he make Christ magnificent by the way he dies. Yet, which I shall choose, live or die, which I shall choose, I cannot tell. I'm hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart. Let's die. Death. My desire is to depart. Why?

19:28 Because I will have greater intimacy with Jesus. And that is far, far better. That's the premise that was missing. Okay, so here's here's the premise, here's the way the argument works. My expectation and hope, my longing for my life is that Christ would be shown to be magnificent in my death. Because to die is gain. Because I get Jesus. Now the argument works. And my Christian hedonism just blew up with glorious manifestation. Can you see it? Can you put it together? Could you finish this talk?

20:28 No, you see, you couldn't. You could. If you gave it enough thought, you could. You could put this together. That's what we do with the Bible. We put it together. We think. We meditate. Blessed is the man who meditates on the law of the Lord day and night. He becomes like a tree planted by streams of water. His leaf does not wither. In everything he does, he prospers. That's what we do. That's what our life is for. Okay. How does it work? Christ is going to be... It's getting messy so it just disappeared. Christ is going to be shown to be magnificent by my death. The reason he is going to be shown to be glorified and glorious and magnificent is because this death of mine is experienced by me as gain.

21:23 And the reason it is experienced by me is gain. So magnified in death, death is gain and it's gain because to be with Christ is far better. Which means that if I in my moment of death am so satisfied in Christ, so restful in Christ, so trustful in Christ, so treasuring Christ that everything I'm leaving behind is loss and he is gain, I make him look. good. That's my Christian hedonism. That's my vertical hedonism. I'm an old man. I pray a lot that that will happen. I mean Satan hates me and you.

22:33 And in those last hours he will shoot at you with every arrow he's got to make you doubt your life. It was all for the books. It was all for the pride of standing in front of people and talking about interesting things. You were on an ego trip all your life. You are one big fake. How in the world will that make Jesus look good? So this is serious stuff for me and if you're young I hope you spend the rest of your life getting ready for this. We'll talk about living as the way to magnify Christ but right now the way to magnify Christ to make him look glorious as you die is to treasure him more than you treasure what you leave behind. That's That's the only way.

23:29 Which means if you cease to pursue your pleasure in him, you cannot make him look good. So that's the first half of the argument, namely the death half. Now the life half. I want Christ, it is my eager expectation, eager expectation and hope that Christ will be magnified in my body by life. So probably nobody's gonna die while I'm talking. I hope not. And therefore you've got another few hours to live tonight. And this is what you should be thinking about.

24:27 How can I make him look magnificent by my life before I go to sleep tonight? That's what you're for. It has to do with the tone of voice to your spouse in the car. It has to do with whether you're afraid when you walk through the neighborhood. It has to do with whether you're kind to the person at the corner. There's a zillion things that flow out of sweet restfulness in Jesus. Okay, so you want to know how to make Christ look magnificent by your life. And he says, to live is Christ. Because, that's going to happen, because to live is Christ. Now that's not a clear sentence. That doesn't, I don't know what he means.

25:16 To live is Christ. What does that mean? Can you unpack that for me? It sounds great. I grew up on this. To live is Christ. I said, yeah, but what's that mean? It means first, if I am to live in the flesh, fruitful labor. That's his first way of describing to live as Christ. It means fruitful labor, doing things that bear fruit. It's not entirely clear what that means yet, but that gets us a little farther along. To live as Christ is to live a life of fruitful labor. Now the rest of this is devoted to death, so let's go to the next paragraph, next verses.

26:14 Next verse. But, so I don't know what to choose. I'd like to die, go to be with Jesus, because that is more immediately gratifying. All right. but to remain in the flesh with you in fruitful labor is more necessary.

26:35 So you're back to duty now? To remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Okay, so on your account, I'm going to stay. My fruitful labor has to do with you, Philippians. So convinced of this, that my staying on the planet is more necessary in fruitful labor For you, I know I will remain and continue with you all.

27:12 Princess, that's one of the reasons I think Paul probably, very likely, got out of prison in Rome and made one more visit to the Philippians. Because I just take seriously, I know. I know I will remain and continue with you. He's riding from Rome to Philippi, hundreds of miles away. And he's got a death sentence hanging over him, probably. What's he talking like this for? He just senses, somehow, it's gonna happen. Now what's gonna happen? I'm gonna continue with you all, and here's what's gonna happen in my fruitful labor. It's gonna be for your advancement. Might be progress in your version. ESV, progress. This is King James right here.

28:07 Either one works. Advancement, going forward, getting more, more. Advancement and joy of faith, literally of faith. Joy of faith. So I'm going to stay on the planet. Christ is going to be my life. It's going to be fruitful labor for you. And that means when I come to you and minister the word of God among you, your faith is going to just take off and your joy of faith is going to swell. This is starting to get interesting.

28:48 So you're saying, Paul, that what makes Christ look magnificent by your staying is that your staying becomes the means of their happiness in Jesus. Is that what you're saying? Yes, that is what he's saying. So that, we like those words, hina, I put the Greek here because the translations go haywire here and we have to make some choices and we got a lot of Greek readers in this room to check me. So that in me, so I'm coming to you for fruitful labor. That will mean the advancement and joy of your faith so that in me, that is in my coming, because of my coming to you again, and this in me and that are the same.

29:45 So in me, that is in my coming to you again, in my fruitful labor. Now, here's the translation of this phrase. Your boast may abound, bound boast in Christ Jesus. And now he's done with the argument for what it means to live as Christ. And Christ magnified in his life.

30:12 So can we sum it up and see if you arrive at the same place I do? so back to my eager expectation and hope what I long for in my life above all things is that Christ would be magnified in my bodily life by my life I want Christ to look magnificent by everything I do while I'm alive That's going to happen because to live is Christ. Which is not altogether clear, but he unpacks it for us. What do you mean to live is Christ? To live is Christ means that I'm going to stay here and engage in fruitful labor. And he's going to talk about the fruit now.

31:09 What will be the fruit that will make Christ look magnificent? And we jump to here. To remain in the flesh is more necessary. So this fruit that I want to have, God deems to be more necessary than my dying and having a good time in heaven right now. More necessary. Convinced of that, I'm going to yield to his will. I don't kill myself. He decides when I live and when I die. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all. Now, four, and here's what the fruitful labor, here's the fruit that's going to come from his staying. It's going to be the advancement and joy of your faith. And that's going to be also described as, or is going to issue in boasting in Christ.

32:08 Now, chalchima, boasting, is sometimes translated rejoicing in, sometimes translated exalting in, and sometimes translated boasting in. So just think through what that is. What does that mean? If you boast in Jesus, what are you doing? What are you saying? What would be a sentence for your boasting in Jesus? I make much of you. Or you're really strong. You're really wise. You're really, really good. I mean, when you boast in your kids, you see that shot? That was a basketball shot. That shot, that's my kid. That's my kid. I don't like that attitude towards kids, but that's another sermon.

33:04 Boasting means seeing somebody's quality and saying, that's great. I love that. And that's what we do if we are full of joy in him. The joy is simply the emotional explosion of the boast. which means we're back to... God is most glorified in us when we're most satisfied in him or Christ is made to look magnificent by my ministry if my ministry is a means of causing other people to boast in Jesus. Just to underline that from chapter 3. Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

34:05 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus. I think that's what it means that to live as Christ means he is more valuable to me than everything for his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, count them as rubbish. So by comparison to Jesus, everything is rubbish. That's a pretty strong act of treasuring Jesus. It's a very emotional one because you've got a lot of emotional things right here in the loss of all things. Your marriage, your health, your house, your books, your car, your reputation. Lose it all and have Jesus gain.

35:05 I count them as rubbish in order that I may gain. There's the return to the word. Gain. So summarize. Christ is... most magnified in us when we are more satisfied in him than what we lose in death and what we have in life. Christ is magnified. This is my summary of everything we just saw in Philippians. Christ is most magnified in us when we are more satisfied in him, our treasure, the superior worth of knowing him, than in what we lose in death and what we have in life. One more summary statement.

36:06 The key to magnifying Christ in life and in death is to find him more precious, more valuable, more satisfying, more joyful, more boast-worthy than everything we lose in death to die is gain, and everything we have in life to live is Christ. vertical Christian hedonism, just briefly on horizontal Christian hedonism. What does our joy in Christ have to do with love for people? This is the key text. We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia. So he's writing to the Corinthians. He's going to use the Macedonians, that's the Philippians and Thessalonians. He's going to use them as the example that the Corinthians should copy. I want you to know brothers about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia. Now what did that grace look like? When grace came down and they tasted the grace of God, forgiving their sins, giving them the hope of eternal life, reconciling them to God, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.

37:39 Verse 8, I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others, that's the Macedonians, that your love also is genuine, which means love, is what he calls this. You got that? That make sense?

38:01 I am proving by the earnestness of others, the Macedonians, that your love also, the word also there is the key to show that love is what he's just been talking about. Now here's the connection between love and joy in God. This grace of God produced an abundance of joy and that abundance of joy was not in the absence of affliction but the increase of affliction. That abundance of joy was not in the absence of poverty, but extreme poverty, which means this joy, which is so abundant that it overflows, was not in anything on the planet. It was in the grace of God. I'm saved. My sins are forgiven.

39:04 I've got the hope of eternal life. Everything's going to work together for my good. God is for me and not against me. How can I not dance for joy? Poverty? What difference? Affliction? What difference? Now almost nobody in this room feels that way. because we're all so worldly. Bad thing happened to me? I'm in God's face.

39:38 I mean, Paul is just crazy Christian, crazy radical Christian. This is what I want to be, what you want to be. we want to know the grace of God. We want to taste the love of God, the grace of God, the presence of God so deeply that even though there's huge and never-ending affliction, even though there's poverty that never seems to go away, nevertheless, my joy is like mountains,

40:09 mountains of joy. we were talking around the table whenever we met Tuesday we met teachers team and we were talking about how silly Christian hedonism could sound happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy how superficial don't you know there's wars there's Ukraine there's Gaza there's death everywhere and we were so thankful that for 30 years God has not let us be silly for this reason right there the Bible won't let you be silly it will not let you talk about any other joy than in affliction it won't let you talk about any other joy than in poverty.

41:08 If you don't have a joy that abounds in affliction and abounds in poverty, you don't have Christian joy. This is serious. You can see why we would devote our lives to this for 30 years. It's bottomless, like an ocean with no bottom and no shore. So, my conclusion is that vertical Christian hedonism, which is happening in the connection right here, grace of God, abundance of joy, grace of God, abundance of joy, that's vertical Christian hedonism. Grace came down and everything in me says, thank you, you are enough. Whoa, what a grace, what a God. and this overflows to this, right?

42:04 I mean, I couldn't ask for a text that says it any better. This abundance of joy in God now overflows in a wealth of generosity on their part, which is why I said, if I'm not willing to lay down my life to bring you into the joy I have in God, I'm a liar. I'm just a fake. If it does not overflow in generosity, if I just got to clutch my stuff, I have my stuff. You can't have my stuff. Stop asking for my stuff. If my disposition is not to overflow with this grace and this joy, I'm just loveless. So, wrap it up.

43:03 What is love? Love is the overflow of joy in God that meets the needs of others. I just think that's crystal clear from verse 2 of 2 Corinthians. Love is the overflow of joy in God that meets the needs of others. But I want to put a twist on it because that sounds like it's just effortless and there's no intentionality involved. Just kind of overflow, which is true. And I'm going to say joy in God contains the impulse to expand and include others in it, whatever the cost. You know, I don't just stand here and say, wow, God, you're great. You're really, really wonderful. And nothing happens. I don't do anything in the neighborhood. I don't do anything at church. I don't do anything but sit in my cheer and enjoy God, that's not Christian joy. There is an impulse in joy in God.

44:05 It was there in the Trinity. Another whole seminar, right? It was there in the