P1010763 – We Love God!

As Christian hedonist preachers we know that every listener longs for happiness. And we will never tell them to deny or repress that desire. Their problem is not that they want to be satisfied but that they are far too easily satisfied. We will instruct them how to glut their soul-hunger on the grace of God. We will paint God’s glory in lavish reds and yellows and blues, and hell we will paint with smoky shadows of gray and charcoal. We will labor to wean them off the milk of the word onto the rich fare of God’s grace and glory. We will bend all our effort, by the Holy Spirit, to persuade our people: 1. That “the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt” (Heb. 11:26). 2. That they can be happier in giving than receiving (Acts 20:35). 3. That they should count everything as loss for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus their Lord (Phil. 3:8). 4. That the aim of all of Jesus’ commandments is that their joy might be full (John 15:11). 5. That if they delight themselves in the Lord He will give them the desires of their heart (Ps. 37:4). 6. That there is great gain in godliness with contentment (1 Tim. 6:6). 7. That the joy of the Lord is their strength (Neh. 8:11). We will not try to motivate their ministry by Kantian appeals to mere duty. We will tell them that delight in God is their highest duty. But we will remind them that Jesus endured the cross for the joy that was set before Him (Heb. 12:2), and that Hudson Taylor, at the end of a life full of suffering and trial, said, ‘I never made a sacrifice.”

John Piper