Desiring God - Lesson 2

Desiring God
Dr. John Piper
ld415-02
The Foundation and Essence of Christian Hedonism
Lesson Transcript

 

The following message is by Pastor John Piper. More information from Desiring God is available at W WW dot desiring God dawg. The next thing we want to do is look at Section four in our outline. We've just one, one, two, three. And Section four is the foundation of Christian hedonism in God's God centeredness. Now, in your outline, there are in the book there are 35 biblical texts to illustrate God's pursuit of God's glory. Above all things. I'm going to go at it a completely different way, because what I found in the few times I've taught this is that if I tried to do 35 of those, it takes forever, because if I'm still preaching on each of those texts. So what I've done is to. Take six. Great works of redemption in their chronological order, from predestination before history to consummation at the end of history and show you in each of those six stages of redemptive history that God's main passion is His glory. Now, why am I doing this? Step back. Why are you going here? What's that got to do with what we've just been talking about? I can remember lying in the third floor of Eliot Hall as a senior at Wheaton College, asking myself, Well, do you marry Noel for the glory of God or because there's joy in it? Do you read and write poetry for the glory of God or because there's joy in it? Or do you go and witness on the street in Chicago on the weekend for the glory of God, or because there's joy in it? And in those days, it was just a conundrum to me. It was just I mean, you may think, but it's not a hard hit church. But it was.

 

It just was. And I knew that from my dad, that whatever you do, Johnny, in word or deed, whether you eat or drink, that's whether you eat or drink, do all to the glory of God that I knew how that fit together with joy. I figured that out. So what I want to do is make sure that you see what I saw intuitively, because I grew up drinking this from my mother's breast. Johnny, whatever you do, you do it for God's glory. That was in my blood from the get go in the Bill and Ruth Piper household. It may not be in yours. And therefore, we need to lay that foundation. What? They never told me. However, my mom and dad is that not just that I should do everything for God's glory, but that God does everything for God's glory. And that has become very powerful for me and very controversial for others. If I don't do this first, I'm sure more of you will leave this seminar as a UN born again pleasure seeker saying that I told you that's okay. Then if I do it this way, because what I'm about to show you is so unsettling to the UN regenerates so that that people get mad. So this is a this is a preparation for the good news of and by the way, this is a means to joy. But right now, you need to see God does everything for the glory of God. And they were connected to Joy. So let's start with predestination, where Ephesians one does. Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love, he predestined us.

 

Now watch these phrases as they come. Why did God do this? You should be asking why did he predestined me choose me? He predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved. So. What does that mean? He predestined us for adoption through Jesus and it accords with something. And it's to something. It accords with the purpose of his will. So nobody strain him from outside, against his will to choose or predestined what he did. It's all coming from his own sovereign will. And why? To what end? To the end. So to means to the end of the praise. Of the glory of His grace. So you were elected as a Christian and predestined to be adopted into God's family so that you would spend eternity praising the glory of the grace of God, which makes God the goal of your predestination. Got that? God's glory is the goal of your election and your predestination. That's why it was done. This is not unclear. This is clear. He predestined us unto adoption into his family in accord with his sovereign will, not anybody else's will determining it. And it's on to praising him. I choose you. So you praise me, Praise me, praise me. C.S. Lewis hated this at age 29 until he got on the bus. And headed for the zoo. He writes about that change this issue. I'll call him in a few minutes. And I've spoken to so many for 30 years of people who hate this. I hope you don't. It can. And you can ask questions. I mean, I did. I mean, I wrestled with this for years, asking questions humbly.

 

How can this fit with other texts? That's fine. That makes you a thoughtful theologian. But to say if that's the way God is, I'm out of here, then I pray that not happen. Okay, here's the second stage. After Predestination in Eternity comes creation. Isaiah 43. I will say to the north, God give up. I mean, I will say to the north, give up and to the south. Do not withhold. Bring my sons from afar, my daughters from the ends of the earth. Everyone who is called by my name, who is created for my glory, who I formed and made. So second question Why were you predestined? You were predestined unto the praise of the glory of God, of the grace of God. And second question Why were you created? You were created for God's glory. That doesn't mean you make God glorious. It means you display God's glory. You reflect God's glory when you when you think of the world we live in. And how many people don't make that their life goal. Do you not stand in awe that this planet still exists? That the sun comes up every day on Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists and Minneapolis unbelievers who don't make this their goal at all. And God in his great longsuffering gives people year after year after year to watch the sun come up and say, you know, I'm doing that. The heavens are telling the what? Why? So that the world will see and start praising him and living for him. I created you for my glory. So my picture is that Adam was created at a 45 degree angle as a mirror and the glory of God shown here and glanced off here at Eve, saw it, and she loved it and delighted in it.

 

And, and he was a 45 degree angle. And when Satan came, Satan said, You don't have to be a recipient all the time. You can become glorious. What's happening right here? If you would just turn around, this shining would shine on the ground and you would be that. And they did it. And when you turn mirror over, what does it do? It doesn't shine. It casts a shadow. And they saw the man shaped shadow on the ground, and they thought it was glorious. And they've been living to promote it ever since, either apart from the Holy Spirit. You have turned your back on God, but you still exist in His image in that you cast a an image on the ground. That's really amazing. And it is amazing. I'm going to preach on Sunday that humans are amazing. We can get to the moon. We can shoot missiles that land on particular bedrooms a thousand miles away. We can produce medicines that conquer polio. We humans are amazing with their back to God because this shadow is awesome. It is awesome. And that's why it's so hard to get people saved. The world is awesome. They just got their back to God. They can't see God. They don't know that he's awesome. It's like a billion times awesome. And our job is to, since we've been put back at the 45 degree, is to keep our mirror clean so that we shine. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good deeds and give glory. You Father. That's what we're about. But we're not so good at it. So creation for his glory. Third incarnation. This is Romans 15. I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs.

 

Okay. Stuff there in order. So Christ became a servant, that is, he became human. According to Philippians two five, following, he became a human and he was a servant even unto death. He became a servant to the Jews, circumcised to show God's truthfulness. That's one goal, to show his truthfulness and to confirm promises. So God is a truth teller and he keeps his promises. And it's not all. That's Jewish purpose to magnify God's truthfulness and his promise keeping and in order that the Gentiles as the rest of us might glorify God for His mercy. So why did He come? Why did Christ come to be a servant? Answer Vindicate the truthfulness of God. Show that the promises will be kept and then declare and show and enable the Gentiles to make much of God's glory because they're getting mercy. He used to argue with students who had to write position papers at the end of their seminary career. Different seminaries. And we'd talk phone or in person about this closing paper that was to take all their seminary career and put it in a paper called the Integrating Paper. What integrates everything you've learned? All the Bible, all theology. What is the big overarching integrating motif or thesis or reality? And and people would choose Kingdom of God and and they would choose love of God and. And they would choose covenant. And they would. And some if they hung around me at all, would choose glory of God or if they'd read Edwards. And then I would get into arguments if they didn't choose that, like they chose love of God, and I would take them here. And I say, okay, now just tell me logically and in God's way of doing and thinking, how does the glory of God, in the mercy of God, relate here in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy? My argument was it is that mercy is precious.

 

It is infinitely precious. I'd be dead without being held a long time ago without the mercy of God. But it's not the end. The end is that I would, on the basis of having been treated so mercifully spend the rest of my eternity making much of the glory of God that showed me mercy. So ultimately, if you want to really go to the ultimate uniting motif of everything, it would not be mercy. That's real high, but it would be the glory of God. That's what I see here in verse nine. That's incarnation. God did it for His glory. Perpetuation. We're right at the center of Christ's work. Right at the center of history, in fact, with the cross. God put Christ forward. Romans 325 God put Christ forward as a proportion. That means a an act by which wrath is removed, taken away, drained, absorbed. God put Christ forward as a proportion by his blood. That is his bleeding to death on the cross to be received by faith. This act of propitious, aiding God's wrath through the death of Christ to be received by faith. This act was to show God's righteousness. So that's the reason he did it this way to show his righteousness. Because why did you need it? Why did he need to prove that or show that? Why does he need to show anything? Because in his divine forbearance, patience, he had passed over former sins. Why is that a problem? Why did he need to show his righteousness? Because he had passed over former sins. I mean, what's the problem? Why do you need to have your son die in order to magnify your righteousness just because you forgave sins in the Old Testament? And here's the reason. When God passes over a sin and does nothing fitting about it, no suitable punishment, it just passes over, it forgives or let it go.

 

It looks as though his glory doesn't have any worth, because sin means, according to verse 23, which I didn't quote. Three. 23. Four All have sinned. And what part of the glory of sin is defined in terms of failing to glorify God? I think that's what that verse means. So we all lack falls short of the glory in that we don't treasure His glory. Love His glory, live for his glory. That's what sin is. We treasure other things more than his glory. And therefore, if God just passes over my trampling of His glory, it looks like He approves the trampling of His glory. And he doesn't. So how does he go to vindicate this? This looks so wrong. It looks so unrighteous of God. Just pass over glory, trampling sins. And the answer is, I don't take that lightly. I take it so seriously that if I forgive those who are trampling it, I forgive them on the basis of trampling my son. I will trample my son. I will vindicate the worst of my glory by punishing my son instead of punishing. Yeah, that's what's going on here. Which means that at the very heart of the cross and the perpetuation is God's passion to vindicate God. Right. Passion to save for sure. We're being saved, but we're not getting saved. Without any reference to his glory. Like, Oh, I'll just save people. We'll just switch scenes under the rug of the universe. Let bygones be bygones. That's not the God of the New Testament. It was very costly for us to be shown mercy. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just. And the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Awesome paragraph that may be the most important paragraph in the Bible as propitious to more sanctification.

 

Here's a prayer of Paul for you and me to be holy, to be sanctified. Watch how it develops. It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more so. That's right At the heart of what it is to be holy is to be a loving person, abounding more and more with knowledge and all discernment so that you may approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ. Right on cue to the glory and praise God. Now, what makes this so remarkable is that he's praying. Who's he talking to? Come on. This is easy. God. That's what prayer is. And it is my prayer. He's talking to God and he's asking God to do these things. As for previous prayer like this, you ask God to do things. He prays that level of bound. He prays for knowledge and discernment. He prays that God would give them the ability to discern what is excellent. He prays that they would be pure and blameless. He prays that God would fill them with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus. And He prays that God would do it all for God. I point out that it's prayer because I'm the whole point of these texts is not just that we get holy in order to make God look good, but God does it that way. Paul is saying, God do these things for your glory. Do you do these things in your people, for your glory unto the glory and praise of your name? This prayer shouldn't come as a surprise if you've said the Lord's Prayer a few thousand times, what's the first petition of the Lord's Prayer? And it is a petition.

 

Hallowed be thy name. Why are you asking God to do that? Oh, God. I grew up thinking that was a scripture and like, your name is hallowed. That's not. It's a third person singular imperative. In the Greek, let your name be hallowed. We are asking God to be zealous for His glory. Zealous that His name be hallowed. My most common prayer. I think I get up. Got a new pattern now in my life. Some of the track. You guys heard me talk about this. So I'm setting the alarm earlier since the new Year started because my devotions were getting old, dribbled away by things that came too quick. So I'm getting earlier. I go to my room, I got my bathrobe on. I mean, take time to dress you up because I can get distracted doing that. Got my slippers on my feet from getting cold. I got a blanket by my prayer bridge to throw over me because it's cold in my study. And I go to the window and I look at the city. I've got a magnificent cityscape of downtown Minneapolis, and I think of the thousands of unbelievers there. My most common prayer as I move in my concentric circles out from me to my family to the elders, to the city is God caused me to be hallowed. It's not hallowed in Minneapolis. The Ideas Tower, the Pillsbury Tower in the First Bank Building International Tower. Thousands of people working there at the Don't howler your name every day. Hallowed be your name. God, use Bethlehem. Use all the churches of the Twin Cities. In fact, Grant that your name would be held in the churches. Make these churches radically God centered places where the Halloween of your name is the highest value.

 

That's a prayer. That's. That's the way you pray for sanctification. And when I pray for my children, what do you really pray for your children? I get four sons or daughters in law, ten grandchildren. As of Wednesday, Diane Audrey was born number ten and in Wheaton. So what? I pray for her. I've got a new baby to pray for every day of my life. I'm praying for my grandbabies every day of my life till I'm dead or demented. What do you pray for these ten little ones. Hallowed be thy name. In their lives, may they grow up. Halloween. Cherishing, loving, delighting and passionately pursuing you more than anything. Somebody. Oh, is this letter? Oh, cool. I can even read it to you of this letter. Listen to this. I love her. I don't even know her. I love her. She lives in Texas. I pray for Noelle. I pray for your Noel that the Lord would give her great joy in the ministry. He has given you both. And I pray vehemently for your children. I pray that they would not give a hoot for the things or praises of men and that they will give great glory to God with their lives. I got out my email and I emailed Talitha Kersten. Benjamin Abraham Environments. And I said, Did you know that there's a woman in Texas praying reverently for you and tell of the candidate you said was vehemently So if you want to do that, I would be happy about that. You want to pray vehemently for my for my children. The point is that when you're praying like Paul, the goal of all prayers, all of them, is the glory of God, which means you're telling God to glorify God. Okay.

 

Pleading with Him to glorify his name in your he the last one confirmation second Thessalonians 192 ten they will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction at the second coming of those who don't believe they will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord. And. From his glory. They will. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His might when He comes on that day to be glorified in his saints and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony was believed. So if you can give a little quiz to any believer that, you know or unbeliever, you could ask them, why is Jesus coming back? And one right answer is he's coming back to be glorified in your things. And the second right answer is he's coming back to be marveled at among all those who have believed he's coming to get praise. He's coming to be admired. He's coming for a big, big ceremony with himself at the center of the admiration. That's why it's coming. Okay. No, the question, of course, that that left me with as a college student and. And. Is. That doesn't sound very loving. In fact, it says in First Corinthians 13 five, Love seeks not its own. And you've just spent the last 25 minutes telling us that God does everything for his own glory. So you've just made a powerful case that God is not a loving God. That's the way this is heard by a lot of people, because we're operating in a world in which the preparations for this kind of talk are so absent. We are so man centered. We grew up breathing the air of man centeredness And talk like this, which is based on biblical views of God's God.

 

Sentences are so far into the air we breathe, which you hear on television and what you hear in so many churches, what you read in so many books. This can't be a loving God. This is just a megalomania. That's that's the way it's heard. And so we have work to do. Is Christ self exaltation loving. See what order I want to do this. You. The club. It is loving. In fact, his loving ness, his love, consists in the pursuit of his own. Glory to the max. You still going to the text? I'm going to go to C.S. Lewis first. And shifting gears over to number five. The essence of Christian hedonism, Manji found, is to glorify God by enjoying him, because there's the answer to how it can be loving. But let me take you on the the autobiographical pilgrimage of how it happened. This is C.S. Lewis in his book Reflections on Psalms. This was a paradigm forming and shattering quote when I read it years and years ago. The pivotal quote from C.S. Lewis. But the most obvious fact about praise. Now what he's wrestling with is why is God not like an old woman who needs compliments? That's his language. When he says, praise me, praise me, praise me, and I'll just spend 20 minutes arguing that that's what he says. I'm coming back to be praised. I created you to be praise. I want you to be praised. A God for you to be praise or sanctify you to be praised. And I'm coming again to get praise from you. And C.S. Lewis, when he was 29 years old, hated that message. And here's his how he escaped into love and appreciation. The most obvious fact about praise, whether of God or anything strangely escaped me.

 

I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval or 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 prize 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 had not noticed how the humblest. And at the same time, most capacious, you know that word large, large, expanding capacious minds praised most. And the cranks and misfits and malcontents praised, at least. Just that far. We're not done yet with the quote, but that far, he'd he'd hooked me because when I first read it, I think probably the worst sin in my life was grumbling. But I just. Grumble, grumble, grumble, grumble, criticize, criticize, criticize. Find fault. Find fault and fault. Blame, blame, blame, blame, blame. Just that just felt like me. I wasn't the humblest and the most balanced and the most large and capacious, much praised the most. I wasn't praising Percy. It was a grumbling person. Bellyache, bellyache, bellyache, rarely praise anything or anybody. Spontaneously, I was sick. I still struggle with that. Cranks, misfits, malcontents, praise at least. Okay, the quote goes on. I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it. Isn't she lovely? Wasn't it glorious? Don't you think that magnificent. The psalmist, in telling everyone to praise God, are doing what all men do when they speak about what they care about? My whole more general difficulty about the praise of God, depending on my absurdly denying to us as regards the supremely valuable what we delight to do indeed, what we can't help doing about everything else we value.

 

You know what you value by what you praise, what you talk about. If you never praise or talk about anything, you've lost your capacity to value your. You're your heart isn't capacious, it's shriveling up. I use the phrase in the in the book like a dried peach, the forgotten at the back of the refrigerator for about five months. It's a sad state to be in. But God is willing to wake you up. We praise his gift, get certain guys at a ball game, or get certain guys that a tractor thing where they drive over cars to cool tires ten feet tall, driving over cars. Find out what they like, what they praise. I think we'd like to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely here comes the solution, not merely expresses the joy, but completes. The enjoyment it is. It's a pointed consummation. Hmm. If that's true, I thought my problem is solved. Praise is not just the. Expression of joy. It's the completion of joy. So if God doesn't just reveal himself to us so that we can see and enjoy him, but also demands from us that we praise him, he's demanding that we not settle for anything less than complete joy. And that's the definition of love. It with me. Mind boggling. What you thought was megalomania is the definition of love. It is its appointed consummation. Praise is the appointed consummation of the joy you have in the wine or the mistress or the football game or God. It is not out of complement that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are. The delight is incomplete until it is expressed. Now if that's true. If. If. Expressing displaying showing. Praising God as the supreme treasure of our life is the consummation of that joy, then for him to demand that we praise him, hallow him, glorify him is the command that our joy before and the command that our job fall and is willing to work to make it for is what love is.

 

Just to see if you're getting it. Go back with me to the Bethlehem Mission statement. We exist if we exist, to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things, for the joy of all peoples through Jesus. Somebody asked me one time. Good question. So why don't you have love for people anywhere in your mission statement? Now, what do you think on the basis of what you just heard? My answer would be My answer is that's our definition of love for people. When we do that at a cost to ourselves, willing to die for that to happen, we're loving people. If you can spread a passion for God's supremacy into others so that they have joy forever, you have done the most loving thing. Knew what you meant. If you're really sharp. You may be wondering, Louis. I wrote this in the margin here. Louis argues that praise. Consummate joy. But when I describe the essence of Christian hedonism, that's not quite what I said. What I said was that joy in God is the essence of glorifying him. God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. So we need another quote and then some Bible. Because Lewis and Edwards are not Bible Bibles is Bible. But let's get Edwards on the overhead. This perhaps at least it's in the top three paragraphs that I've ever read in my life outside the Bible. As far as influence goes. So here's where it goes. God glorifies himself toward the creatures in two ways. So glorifies himself in two ways. How does God make himself glorious and look great? By appearing to their understanding and in communicating himself to their hearts. So now you've got the two aspects. You got a head, you got a heart here.

 

You understand how you feel. And in there rejoicing you and delighting and enjoying the manifestations he makes of himself. Amazing. This is the key. This. Oops. God is glorified not only in his glories being seen, but in its being rejoiced in. That is the essence of Christian hedonism. God is glorified not only in his glory being seen. It is perceived with the mind, but in it's being rejoiced in which is what the heart does when those that see it delight in it. God is more glorified then if they only see it because delight magnifies his value better than simply understanding. His glory is then received by the whole soul, both by the understanding and the heart He justifies of his idea. His seeing of God's glory doesn't glorify God so much as He testifies also of His approbation, that His approval of it and his delight in it. That was a very important paragraph for me. What he's saying is this and you know it's true. If you discover a treasure and your mind computes, this is worth a lot, but you feel no attraction to it. You can say, doctrinally speaking, valuable treasure. Would someone like to buy it? But if you see it as something that you really like to have, or if you have it really want to keep, your heart will be engaged. And when people see that, they compute. This is more valuable, at least to you, than if you didn't have that. And that's the way it works with God. When our hearts are not treasuring him, valuing him above other things, he does not look attractive to the world. So what did they do with those? So here we go. I have argued from Lewis and from Edwards that it is not megalomania that describes accurately God's doing everything for his own glory.

 

It is, in fact, love. Now, where would you see that? In the Bible? Let's go here. John One of them, I mean, 11, verse one. Now, a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary, and her sister, Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with her ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. So the sister said to him, saying, Lord, he whom you love, the love peace is ill. But when Jesus heard it, he said, This illness does not lead to death, for it is for the glory of God so that the son may be glorified through it. Now, Jesus loved the sinner twice now. Loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, who's dying, Please come, is dying. And he loved him. And since he loved him. This is very important, therefore. This is the Greek word. Therefore, therefore, when he heard the Lazarus seal, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Now that therefore were so carries a ton of theology in it. How do you explain that? I love you. I love you. You're sick and dying. And since I heard that you're sick and dying and I love you, therefore I will stay where I am until you are dead. It's not hard to figure out because he's given us the key right here, hasn't he? His death is for the glory of God. But think it through. I love you. I'm not going to save you from death right away. In fact, I'm going to arrange for you to die twice in this world. If you only think Lazarus is the only person ever done twice. No, that's not true. So did Tabitha, and so did one other person.

 

The widow son at noon. So the three people that Jesus raised from the dead. All dead twice. So I'm going to refer you to that twice. And the reason this is love to wait, to have you die is because revealing my glory to you is better than escaping death the first time. That work works for me. The argument is I love you, and since I love you, I will let really hard and terrible things come into your life because through them you will see more of me in my glory than if I didn't let hard things. Therefore, love consists in the superior revelation of glory, not the escape from harm and difficulty. So if you want to make if you want to test the love of God, don't ask the question. Is he helping me avoid problems? Ask, am I able through these problems to see more of a sustaining grace? Am I being like Paul weaned off the reliance's of this world? That's what recessions are for. You know, this is this is a work of God to help wean people off of excessive reliance and and create an awesome situation where the church can shine more brightly than the world. I hope you don't have all the same anxieties as the world, because if you do, you're wasting the recession. The recession is here for Christians to shine with superior confidence in God. Be anxious for nothing. You have all the nations seek these things. Your Heavenly Father knows that you need them all. Seek his kingdom first. That's what recessions are for. And cancer. And leukemia. And any other bad thing in your life. Listen to how Jesus starts his prayer. In Chapter 17, when Jesus had spoken these words, He lifted up his eyes to heaven and he said, Father, the hour has come.

 

Glorify your son. First thing he prays for is for his own glory. This is. This is a prayer for us. And the first thing he prays for in high priestly prayer is for his own glory. That the son may glorify you and Father. You. I want you to glorify God as well. So you go for me. I glorify you. Conspiracy of mutual admiration. Since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life. What is eternal life? That they know you. The only true God and Jesus whom you have sinned. I glorified you on the earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. That's a really strange way to begin a prayer for his people. Unless the most loving thing is that Christ be lifted up in supreme glory for our everlasting enjoyment. Which is exactly the way the prayer ends. I should. Father. This is the last verses of the prayer. Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me. Baby, with me where I am to see my glory. Now there's the connection. First five verses glorify me. Glorify me. Don't let me die in this grave. Bring me up, surround me with millions of praising people at the throne as we sit together forever. No, Father, when you do that, I want them to be there. To see my glory that you have given me because you love me before the foundation of the world. Righteous Father. Even though the world does not know you and I know you and these know that you have sent me.

 

I made known to them your name and I will continue to make it known that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them. Now put these together. The love with which God loved him. He wants to be in us. How did God love him? God didn't love Jesus in a merciful way. Jesus needs no mercy from God because He's perfectly deserving of everything. Good. We need mercy because we're sinners. Jesus never sin. He needs no mercy. How did God love him? He loved him as a son that delights him totally. Everything he sees in Jesus, he delights in. So he's thrilled with Jesus. This is my beloved son in whom I am what will pleased, really powerfully, deeply. God sighs, pleased. That's how He loves. When I get to this part of the prayer, he prays that I would see his glory inside me. You know what I fear? I can go to the Alps. I can go to the Grand Canyon. I can see a new baby. And for a few seconds, feel some awe and wonder. And if I got a chalet in the Alps, I never have. I'm just imagining I've done the same thing at the ocean. If I go to chalet in the Alps with a picture window, I'll be watching TV within three days. I will lose my capacity for quickly. So when I read this, I say, okay, heaven, Heaven is going to be seeing the glory of Jesus in three days later looking for a television. Unless something changes. And that's what this versus. Isn't it? Father. I made known to them. Your name. I'll continue to make it known in order that this would happen. The love with which you have loved me.

 

Maybe I am someday going to be able to love Jesus with the love with which the Father loved Jesus. I will not be dependent on the capacities of this teeny weeny, shriveled up piper heart, capable of little flashes of joy. I will be given by the Holy Spirit, fully taking over my life. A genuine me. It will be me. I'm not going to vanish. But it will be the father in me so ravished by his son. I will be enabled by some power to delight in God, in I mean in Jesus in a way that is somehow appropriate to His infinite beauty. Which is good news, because I don't feel capable of that right now. So for him to pray that for me, I want them to see my glory. Father. That sounds megalomania. If you just take it like that. But if it's like this. Oh, God. Surround me with redeemed sinners that I have died for, so that they now, for the first time in their life, in one sense, see the fullness of the glory that I am. So that they can have fullness of joy and and forever more. Then it sounds like love. So we're going to stop here. But let me just summarize something from the beginning. I said at the beginning that the way to solve your sin problem is not by stopping desire. You see, because you desire the solution to that is not I will no longer desire the solution to that is first to be born again by the power of the Holy Spirit. I assume most of you are. I'm sure not all of you are. But if you are, then the next step is praying. Well, tomorrow we're going to spend almost the whole last section.

 

How do you pursue this? Because the goal is not to stop desiring, but to get our desires off of television, off of sex, off of money, off of the praise and approval of man, off of success and job, off of wife and children, off of all the good idols of the world, on to Jesus Christ as supreme, so that we have something to go back to them with called. Spreading a passion for God, supremacy or love. Let's bring. Father in heaven. I so love to see you. More clearly as a heart or a deer pads for the water. Brooks. So why so pants for you? Oh, God. We we say that some of us pay it earnestly, some pay it a little bit. But we watch you. We need you. We are so easily addicted to all the wrong things. So we're asking God, give us good rest now and great. The next sessions we have to gather would be energized, alert, and may the Holy Spirit meet us and help us to grow in these areas. In Jesus name, I pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to this message by John Piper, Pastor for preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Feel free to make copies of this message to give to others, but please do not charge for those copies or alter the content in any way without permission. We invite you to visit desiring God online at w WW dot desiring God dot org. There you'll find hundreds of sermons, articles, radio broadcasts and much more all available to you at no charge. Our online store carries all of Pastor John's books, audio and video resources. You can also stay up to date on what's new at Desiring God. Again, our website is w WW dot desiring God dot org.

 

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