God Is Most Glorified in Us When We Are Most Satisfied in Him - 2

- Death As Gain?
And it gets even plainer when you consider the death half of Philippians 1:20–21. Christ will be magnified in my body by death, “because to me to die is gain” (verse 21). Why would death be gain? The answer is in verse 23b: “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.” Death is gain because it means a greater closeness of being with Christ. Death is “to depart and be with Christ.”

This is why Paul says in verse 21 that to die is gain. You add up all the losses that death will cost you (your family, your job, your dream retirement, the friends you leave behind, your favorite bodily pleasures) — you add up all these losses, and then you replace them only with death and Christ — if when you do that you joyfully say, gain!, then Christ is magnified in your dying. Christ is most magnified in your death, when you are so satisfied in Christ, that losing everything and getting only Christ is called gain.

Or to sum up both halves of the verse: Christ is glorified in you when he is more precious to you than all that life can give or death can take.

- The Centrality of the Cross
That’s the biblical basis for Christian Hedonism: God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

And this really was already implicit in the second message in this series. God created the world for the praise of the glory of his grace displayed supremely in the death of Jesus. Which means that the pursuit of his own praise reaches its climax at the place where it does us the most good, the cross. At the cross God upholds his glory and provides our forgiveness. At the cross God vindicates his own honor and secures our happiness. At the cross God magnifies his own worth and satisfies our soul.

In the greatest act of history, Christ made it come true for undeserving sinners that God could be most glorified in us by our being most satisfied in him.


4. Christian Hedonism changes everything: 11 illustrations
 
-Death
1. We’ve just seen how it changes death. If you want to make Christ look great in your dying, there is no big performance or achievement or heroic sacrifice. There is simply a child-like laying yourself into the arms of the one who makes the loss of everything gain.

- Conversion
2. Christian Hedonism changes how we think about conversion. Matthew 13:44, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” Becoming a Christian not only means believing truth. It means finding a treasure. So evangelism becomes not only persuasion about truth but pointing people to a Treasure—that is more valuable than everything they have.

- The Fight of Faith
3. Christian Hedonism changes “the good fight of faith” (1 Timothy 6:12). John says in John 1:12, “To all who received Jesus, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). Believing Jesus is receiving him. As what? As the infinitely valuable Treasure that he is. Faith is seeing and savoring this Treasure. And so the fight of faith is a fight for joy in Jesus. A fight to see and savor Jesus is more precious than anything in the world. Because this savoring shows him to be supremely valuable. 

- Combating Evil
4. Christian Hedonism changes how we combat evil in our lives. Jeremiah 2:13 gives the Christian Hedonist definition of evil: “My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” Evil is the suicidal preference for the empty wells of the world over the living waters of God’s fellowship. We fight evil by the pursuit of the fullest satisfaction in the river of God’s delights (Psalm 36:8).

- What Hell Is
5. Christian Hedonism changes how we think of hell. Since the way to be saved and go to heaven is to embrace Jesus as your source of greatest joy, hell is a place of suffering, a place of eternal unhappiness, prepared for people who refuse to be happy in the triune God.

- Self-Denial
6. Christian Hedonism changes the way we think about self-denial. Oh, it is really there in the teachings of Jesus, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). But now the meaning becomes,

• Deny yourself the wealth of the world so you can have the wealth of being with Christ.
• Deny yourself the fame of the world to have the joy of God’s approval.
• Deny yourself the security and safety of the world to have the solid, secure fellowship of Jesus.
• Deny yourself the short, unsatisfying pleasures of the world so that you can have fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore at God’s right hand.

Which means there is no such thing as ultimate self-denial, because to live is Christ and to die is gain.

- Money
7. Christian Hedonism changes the way we think about handling our money and the act of giving. Acts 20:35, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” 2 Corinthians 9:7, “Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” The motive to be a generous person, is that it expresses and expands our joy in God. And the pursuit of deepest joy is the pursuit of giving not getting.

- Corporate Worship
8. Christian Hedonism changes the way we corporate worship. Corporate worship is the collective act of glorifying God. But God is glorified in that service when the people are satisfied in him. Therefore, the worship leaders — musicians and preachers — see their task primarily as breaking open a fountain of living water and spreading a feast of rich food. The task of the worshippers is to drink and eat and say a satisfied "Ahhh." Because God is most glorified in those worshippers when they are most satisfied in him.

- Disability and Weakness
9. Christian Hedonism changes the way we experience disability and weakness. Stunningly, paradoxically, Jesus says to the weak and thorn-pierced Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” To which Paul responds, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly [yes this is the voice of the thorn-pierced Christian Hedonist] of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

- Love
10. Christian Hedonism changes the meaning of love. Paul describes the love of the Macedonians like this: “In a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part” (2 Corinthians 8:2). In verse 8, Paul calls this "love." "Abundant joy" in “severe affliction” and “extreme poverty” overflowed in loving generosity. Still poor. Still afflicted. But so full of joy it overflowed in love. So Christian Hedonism defines love as the overflow (or the expansion) of joy in God that meets the needs of others.

- Ministry
11. Christian Hedonism changes the meaning of ministry. What is the ministry aim of the great apostle Paul? 2 Corinthians 1:24, “Not that we lord it over your faith, but we are workers with you for your joy, for you stand firm in your faith.” All ministry should be one way or the other a working with others for their joy.

That’s why God created you. That’s why Christ died for you. That’s why we serve you as your pastors. And that is why I have preached this message. We are workers with you for your joy in God. Because God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him.

C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1958), 93–95.

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