Undivided Joy

Today’s session is the summation of the spiritual reformation God has wrought in my life over the course of the past 5 years. I’m not exaggerating when I say that what we’re talking about today has completely transformed my relationship with and understanding of God.

I realize that you’re tired, but if there was ever a time I could encourage you to hang with me it would be today.

Today’s lesson will require some deep thinking and reflection, but I promise with all of my heart that the pay off is completely worth it.

Joy in God

If I was to title this lesson I would call it “God's Glory as the Grounds for Our Everlasting Joy”. Put another way I could title this lesson “How to Drink at the Rivers of Delight Through Jesus Christ Forevermore”.

In order to understand how to have undivided joy in God we must understand what the glory of God is and how we actually glorify Him, so let’s briefly review what we said yesterday.

Question: What is the glory of God and how do we glorify Him?

Ask this to the group as a whole, not small groups.

God’s glory is the radiation of His holiness and perfections. We glorify Him by reflecting that Glory back to Him.

We talked about the glory of God yesterday, and we throw the phrase around all of the time that God is for His glory, but we don’t often explain why that is. And the reason God is first and foremost for His glory is vitally important. If you haven’t already, you will probably encounter a non-Christian who will object to Christianity by saying, “God is nothing more than a really big ego-maniac. All He thinks about is Himself and His glory; so much so that He would kill someone to for it.” That’s a serious objection and one that we need to deal with seriously. So why is God for His glory above all things and why, as we’ll talk about today, is that a good thing?

God is a perfect being which means He must have perfect loves, perfect, desires, worship what is perfect, and be devoted to what is perfect. What in all of reality is perfect, infinitely worthy of worship, totally worthy of praise, worthy of the highest affections, and perfectly worth devoting oneself to? God! In order for God to be God, He must first and foremost love Himself, desire Himself, value Himself, worship himself, and be devoted to Himself. If He didn’t he wouldn’t be God, He would be an idolater.

When we came along, we didn’t make God an idolater. God did not suddenly worship us and put us at the center of the universe when we came on the scene. And that’s a good thing! If He did, no exaggeration, the entire universe would collapse as that would make God a sinner just like you and me. To worship anything imperfect, namely anything other than God, is idolatry and unrighteousness. When you sin, you are loving something more than God. So if God loved something more than himself He would become unrighteous.

John Piper-Pleasures of God Quote: “Unless we begin with God [at the center of the Gospel], when the gospel comes to us we will inevitably put ourselves at the center of it. We will feel that our value rather than God’s value is the driving force of the Gospel. We will trace the Gospel back to God’s need for us instead of tracing it back to the grace that rescues sinners who need Him. But the Gospel is the good news that God is the all-satisfying end of all our longings, and that, even though he does not need us, and is in fact estranged to us because of our God-belittling sins, he has in the great love with which he loved us, made a way for sinners to drink at the river of his delights through Jesus Christ. And we will not be enthralled by this good news unless we feel that he was not obligated to do this. He was not coerced or constrained by our value. He is the center of the gospel. The exaltation of His glory is the driving force of the Gospel. The Gospel is a Gospel of grace. And grace is the pleasure of God to magnify the worth of God by giving sinner the right and power to delight in God without obscuring the glory of God."

So, how does God’s pursuit of His glory relate to joy in God? Here we come to probably the deepest part of our time together. Buckle up and put your thinking caps on because we are going to attempt to gaze at some of the most mysterious and intimate intricacies of the very essence of God. I admit, we are coming dangerously close to the limits of human understanding, but theologians throughout the age, and more importantly, I think Scripture, affirms the very deep dive we are about to take. Bear with me for a second and remember this, if you don’t understand every single detail, that’s ok. Just get the big picture. We have plenty of time in Q&A and throughout camp to talk more about this, so don’t think that you question is lost if it doesn’t get answered in this short time here in this break out. The big picture is that joy is at the very essence of who God is. Now let’s take a second, dive in, and see if we can see why that is.

We all have an image of ourselves. We all have an idea of who we are, knowledge of our characteristics, traits, attributes, longings, desires, loves, hates, actions, emotions, and more. That image is almost like a reflection of ourselves in our own mind; like we’re looking at ourselves in the mirror in our minds, but not just our looks, but everything about us.

Take a second and bring up that image of yourself in your mind. Close your eyes and really concentrate. Imagine not just what you look like, but think about your deepest desires, your longings, your past, those whom you love, your favorite things, your failures, your successes, everything. Take a second and think about it as accurately as you can.

You have that image, idea, reflection of yourself in your mind? Well, God has an image of Himself as well. He has an image of his characteristics, his attributes, loves, desires, past, future, and all of the rest. But there’s a difference between the image we have of ourselves and the image God has of Himself.

The image we have of ourselves is imperfect. Think about the image of yourself that you just thought of. For some of you, that in that image, you think way too lowly of yourself. Your first thoughts were your failures, your weight, how you feel unloved and unworthy. You need to think more highly of yourself just as God thinks more highly of you. For others of you, your image gives you too much credit. You think too highly of yourself, your successes, your popularity, your intelligence, your grades, your spot on varsity, your girlfriend/boyfriend. You need to think more accurately of yourself and not view yourself as a demi-god, because you’re not one and God doesn’t think you are one.

But God’s image of Himself, specifically God the Father’s image of Himself is different. Unlike our image our ourselves, God’s image of Himself is perfect. In fact, His image of Himself, His attributes, His excellencies, His glory, is so perfect, so real, so personal, that it actually manifests itself as another person, as God. We now this image of God, begotten, not made, as Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Now, before you think this sounds crazy, I want to read a few verses so that you might begin to see that this is actually the language of Scripture.

Verses about Jesus as the Image of God

Colossians 1:15-“He is the image of the invisible God”

2 Corinthians 4:4-“In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

John 10:30- “I and the Father are one.”

John 1:1-2“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God”. What is the Word of God but a revelation of God, His image, His attributes, and His characteristics? That’s exactly what Jesus is.

John 14:9-“Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?”

And probably the clearest example, Hebrews 1:3- “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature”

Jesus Christ is the perfect image of God, the radiance of His glory. He and the Father are persons in the Godhead, both being divine.

Now remember, how we said that God must love Himself in order to be perfect? This is where we see some of the fruit of that. Just as we love and delight in God because He is glorious and beautiful, so God loves and delights in Himself, the image of Himself because it is so great and glorious. So the Father delights in the Son and takes pleasure in the Son. The Son also loves the Father and rejoices and delights in His Father.

We’re not quite done with our deep dive. There’s one final step to this. We spoke of the incredible love shared between the Father and the Son. Well what is love? Love requires both the head and the heart. In order to truly love someone, you must have knowledge of them, and it is this knowledge that impels your affections. In love you also must use your heart because it is your affections that rouse the deep feelings of love that you have for the person. But love also requires action. Without action, there can be no love. In short, love is deeply personal and requires your whole person to be real. This love shared between the Son and the Father, is deeply person, consisting of perfect knowledge, affections and action. In fact, it is so personal, with such perfect knowledge of Father and the Son, with such personal and powerful actions and affections that this love actually manifests itself as another person, namely the Holy Spirit.

This is why Paul can say in Romans 5:5- “God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us”. That’s when you accept Christ you have your affections changes and your love for God formed in you.

A beautiful example of all of this working together is at Jesus’ baptism starting in Matthew 3:13. Turn with me there. As you turn there, let me make a brief comment before we dive into the passage. Baptism, at its very core, is a public proclamation of one’s love for God. So when we see baptisms later this week, we are seeing people beautifully and publicly show their love for God. So when Jesus is being baptized, He is publicly showing His love for the Father. Ok, Let’s check out this passage. Look for evidences of what we’ve been talking about as we read through.

Matthew 3:13-17-“Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

Can you see the evidences of what we’ve been talking about in this passage? The Father expresses His joy and love for the Son by saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased”, Jesus is making a public proclamation of his joy and love for the Father in His Baptism, and as that joy and love flows forth who do we see descending from the Father to the Son as the love shared between them? The Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. We can see a beautiful picture of the love and joy of the Trinity here.

God the Fathers loves and takes joy in God the Son, who loves and takes joy in God the Father and this deep love is manifest in the Holy Spirit.

Which is why in John 17:13 Jesus can pray to the Father saying, “But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves”, namely that we would share in His love for God ultimately leading to the Holy Spirit dwelling in our hearts.

Remember, don’t get hung up if you didn’t understand all of that. Just understand the main point of it all, namely that joy is at the very essence of the nature of God. Isn’t that a glorious reality! No other god in any other religion can ever make that claim. The God of Christianity is vastly different from any other god ever spoken of.

Ok, let’s take a breath.

One final train of thought before we can apply this to our lives.

God’s joy comes in glorifying Himself

So we’ve talked about how joy is at the very essence of who God is, but I want to hint on one final element of this and this will lead us into our application. God’s joy isn’t a random or vague idea. In actual fact, God’s joy arises when He is glorified. Now how does this relate to what we’ve just been talking about? Like this.

People will often ask the question, “What was God doing before creation?”. Thomas Aquinas supposedly said that God was thinking of ways to punish pesky seminary students for thinking up such questions. Actually, I think we can say that God was doing something else. In all of eternity past, God was perfectly enjoying himself, perfectly satisfied, perfectly happy, in the communion of the Trinity. Even more, in all of eternity past, each member of the Trinity was showering praises upon the other members of the Trinity so that God, in the Trinity is in this infinitely beautiful, infinitely joyful community of glory and joy.

We see hint after hint of the joy through glorification in the Trinity in Scripture. Every member of the Trinity gives glory to the other members of the Trinity. The Father gives praises to the Son, like in Matthew 3 that we just read where He says, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased”. Among other passages Son gives glory to the Father, like in the beginning of John 17 when he says, “When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, 2 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, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on 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.” Jesus gives glory to the Spirit, in John 16 when He says that it is better for the Spirit to be inside the disciples than it is for Jesus to be beside them. That’s high praise and glory. And the Father glorifies the Spirit in the same words because from John 5 we know that the Son cannot do anything that the Father has not revealed to Him. Finally, the Spirit glorifies both the Father and the Son and He testifies to their work in our hearts.

Each member of the Trinity glorifies the other members of the Trinity and this is what gives them joy. This is the very joy that Jesus speaks of in John 17:13.

So how does this relate to us and apply to our lives?

Made in God’s image so we will take joy in what God takes joy in.

As glorious as these realities are, they won’t mean much for our lives until we can see how they apply to our everyday lives.

Application

Because We Are Made in God’s Image, Our Ultimate Joy Will Come From Glorifying Him.

This is profound. This means that

Because We are Made in God’s Image, We Will Find Our True Joy in What God Finds Joy In

Creation

Love

Worship

Creativity (God’s joy in creation, our joy in imaging Him in creating things, designing things)

God takes joy in order and justice. (Glorify God in justice and take joy in Him in that)

Redemption

Etc.

We sing to God: break my heart for what breaks your's. That's true. We should want that. But have we ever prayed to God, "God give me joy in things that bring you joy"?

Sunrises and Sunsets (Explain how they gives you joy in God and remind you our God’s greatness and glory)

Part of being a mature Christian is seeing how everything can relate to God joy. This leads us to our next application

We can see the joy of God manifested everywhere in our lives

Jonathan Edwards: “God is the highest good of the reasonable creature. The enjoyment of him is our proper,…[and the] only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Better than fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of any, or all earthly friends. These are but shadows; but the enjoyment of God is the substance. These are but scattered beams; but God is the sun. These are but streams; but God is the fountain. These are but drops, but God is the ocean."

This even applies in the Gospel

Isaiah 53:10

Yet the Lord was pleased to crush him severely. (Read this after the Philippians verses) When you make him a guilt offering, he will see his seed, he will prolong his days, and by his hand, the Lord’s pleasure will be accomplished.

Philippians 2:5-11

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

At the cross, God simultaneously vindicates His glory and holiness by punishing sin (Romans 3) and also exercises the very means by which His Son will be forever praised (Philippians 2:5-11; Revelation 5:11-12), all to the praise of God the Father (Philippians 5:11). Jesus will be forever praised for being the Savior of the world (Revelation 5:11-12). This gives God incredible joy. God the Father will be praised for His love and mercy in giving up His only Son for the world (John 3:16). God gets great joy from this. The Holy Spirit will be praised for drawing sinners to God, applying the redemption that was accomplished by the Son and planned by the Father. All of God gets infinite joy in this. Even in the darkest moments in history, infinite joy flows forth from God. The God of Christianity is not like any other god in all of the world’s religions because no other god in all of the world has joy and love like the God of the Bible. Praise God from whom all joy flows!

If God can take the greatest crime ever committed in the history of the universe, and turn it to become the greatest good ever, it means that He can take whatever painful and hard circumstances are in our lives and turn them for our joy and His glory.

With Christ your pain is never wasted. In eternity it will be turned into glorious and everlasting joy! Sometimes it takes pain for us to hear from God. We can't hear God in our pleasures because they drown out God's cries to us. But in pain, we can hear him.

Fighting Sin

Talk about how pleasure in God helps us fight sin. When God withholds something from us, he always has something better for us. Sever sin at the root with superior joy. Christianity is about about do's and dont's, but about joy. Our desires matter. Sin is like trying to quench your thirst with a single drop of water when God has promised you and endless ocean of delight.

Heaven as a test case.

Evangelism

1 John 1:1-4

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— 2 the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— 3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 And we are writing these things so that our[a] joy may be complete.”

John is talking about the Gospel here. He’s saying that he must share the Gospel in order for His joy to be made complete

Explain how you give glory to every member of the Trinity when you share the Gospel.

This is all displayed really clearly in worship and the preaching this week.

Your joy in God comes from making much of Him. As you see God’s glory proclaimed more, your joy increases which causes you to have more joy, which causes you to worship Him more. That’s the beautiful cycle of Christian joy. For all of eternity we will make much of God by singing, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain” and in that our joy will be perfect, overflowing, and everlasting. No other god loves you or gives you joy like the God of the Bible does. When God tells you to glorify Him in all you do, He is telling you to pursue your everlasting joy. Christianity is not an arduous and ascetic religion of just following dos and dont’s. It’s a reality of incredible joy!

You will see the truth of this reality more this week than most. Think about. You are going to experience incredible joy in worship as you make much of God and give Him glory in song. That's not a coincidence. You're seeing God's glory abound and even more so because of all the people proclaiming God's excellencies and glory with passion. God designed you in such a way that that would give you joy! There's a taste of Heaven in that. Forever in Heaven we will sing, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain! To Him be all of the glory and honor and power forever!" Every time we worship this week and beyond, we are experiencing a taste of Heaven. More than that, you're hearing the Gospel preached every day. What's happening when you hear the Gospel preached? Why is preach able to give us so much joy? Because every time you hear the Gospel preached you are hearing God' being glorified. Every time the Gospel is preached, you are hearing the Father glorified for His great plan of redemption, the Son glorified for accomplishing that redemption, and the Holy Spirit glorified for drawing us to God, apply Christ's redemption to us in salvation, and by making us more like Jesus from one degree of glory to next every single day. No wonder we take so much joy in hearing the Gospel preached and God exalted.

Conclusion

When God tells you to glorify Him in all you do, He is telling you to pursue your everlasting joy.

As the Westminster Divines put it all the way back in 1646, our main purpose in life is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. I might have one alteration that I think they would totally agree with. Our main purpose in life is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever.

We sing to God: break my heart for what breaks your's. That's true. We should want that. But have we ever prayed to God, "God give me joy in things that bring you joy"?

Question and Answer 1 of the Westminster Confession of Faith: What is the chief end of man? Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.

God’s passion for His glory is the measure of His commitment to our joy.‬ Since he has an infinite passion for His glory it means he has an infinite commitment to our joy, even to the point of sending His Son to die on a cross so that we could have perfect, all-satisfying joy in God forever.

God’s glory is the grounds for our everlasting joy.

May we give God all of the glory this week as we find profound joy in Him.

Let’s pray.

Q&A

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