The Only Life Worth Living

Audio Transcript

I just read a survey that, in the last twenty years, the number of people who answer that they are experiencing the lowest happiness has increased by fifty percent. So, unhappiness in America, according to this survey, has skyrocketed in the last twenty years. Now, that’s perhaps good news because that survey did not mean that, twenty 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. The survey was not inquiring about happiness in God.

What the survey meant was that, twenty 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 in the world, which you desperately want more of, you just might turn to God.

For the last 57 years, I have devoted most of my time to ransacking the Bible and human experience to understand the relationship between human happiness and the glory of God. And the upshot of that we now call Christian Hedonism. So, we’re going to look at definitions and foundations of Christian Hedonism, both vertical and horizontal. That’s where we’re going.

Devoted to Pleasure

Hedonism, in my 1963 Webster’s dictionary, is “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 longest pleasure — namely, pleasure in God. And I say that because of Psalm 16:11, which says, “In your presence [God] there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” I’ve stood before many audiences and said this without the slightest fear that it would happen: “If anybody in this audience, after this session, can show me a better happiness than I have in God, I will cease to be a Christian. I’ll stop believing, and I’ll go your way.”

But it is not only unlikely that you will do that; it is inconceivable that you would be able to do that — because there isn’t anything fuller than full or longer than forever. I’m safe. This is serious. This is really awesome. If you are banking on a pleasure that’s less than full and less than forever, you’re crazy. Tony’s whole message was saying, “Don’t do that!” The world is screaming at you, “Look at me! I made everything, and it’s glorious. Don’t waste your life!” That’s my definition of Christian Hedonism: It’s a life devoted to the fullest and longest pleasure — namely, pleasure in God.

Now, what do I mean by vertical Christian Hedonism? I mean this: God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. Here I am below, and God is above. God is in pursuit of his glory, and I’m in pursuit of my happiness. And Christian Hedonism discovers in the Bible that he is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in him. I’m home. My quest is over. His glory is magnified. My soul is satisfied. It is over.

Horizontal Christian Hedonism relates to people. In about 1977, I was still at Bethel, and I was wrestling in those formative years and trying to think about how this vertical reality doesn’t leave me like a cross-legged Buddhist, saying, “Let the world go to hell. I don’t care. Me and God are good.” If that were the case, if this vertical reality doesn’t somehow release horizontal love for people, I know it must be false — because the Bible is so shot through with love as the aim of God’s commandments. Love fulfills the whole law. If your vertical hedonism is going to turn you into a recluse, where just 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. 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 texts for that. I didn’t make it up. It will come straight out of 2 Corinthians, and you’ll see it with your eyes. I’ll give you a text on vertical Christian Hedonism and a text on horizontal Christian Hedonism, and that will fill up our time.

By expand in the definition of horizontal Christian Hedonism, I mean that my joy in God gets bigger when I step out of my comfort zone 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 because of it. That means, if I’m a Christian Hedonist — devoted to a life of pleasure — I’m going to 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. It’s just me and God, and I’m a fake. So, horizontal Christian Hedonism really matters. The Bible presents love as the litmus test. If you don’t love people, you don’t know God (1 John 4:20).

Necessary Pursuit

Here’s one more consideration before we go to the texts. The radical pursuit of joy in God is a Christian duty. One of my little books is called 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 — you will fail to glorify God, and you 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.

Here’s a positive way to put it: The pursuit of pleasure in God is a necessary part of all worship and virtue. Worship becomes defective and 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 instead of delight. It ruins the whole thing.

And it’s the same thing when you visit someone in the hospital and say to the poor person who’s in the bed, “I didn’t really want to come, but I had to because I’m a pastor.” See how that goes down, in terms of creating a sense of being loved. But if I say to her, “I’m here because, frankly, though I wanted to be playing with my kids, to drive here and to be the instrument of your happiness in God makes me glad.” I’ve seen it in their faces. They think, I’m glad that your being here to help me makes you glad. That’s real love.

The Only Life Worth Living

The apostle Paul says,

It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed.

Those are very similar words, right? It’s a hope-filled expectation, an expectant hope. He’s saying, “This is what I want to happen in my life.” This is why texts like this grab me. I want my life to count. I want to do what the Bible says really matters. And that’s what this is.

It is my eager expectation and hope that I will [negatively] not be at all ashamed, but that [positively] with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. (Philippians 1:20)

My passion, my expectation, my hope, is that whatever I do with this body — whether I’m eating, or sleeping, or speaking, or running — Christ would be made to look magnificent. Is that a fair paraphrase? The word “magnified” is megalynthēsetai. Christ is magnified, made to look magnificent in your life. That’s why you’re on the planet, that’s why clouds are on the planet, that’s why the sun is on the planet, and all the creation that Tony talked about. It’s screaming, “He’s magnificent!” And that’s what your life is for. Paul said that was what he wanted to happen: “My eager expectation and hope is that Christ will be magnified.”

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 have the glory piece right here in front of me. This is glory. We could say that Christ would be glorified or shown to be glorious. So, if that’s what he’s saying, will he give me a clue as the text unfolds as to how that happens? And he does.

Christ Magnified in Death

Paul continues,

Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. (Philippians 1:20)

In other words, I want to live in such a way that, in my life, Christ looks magnificent — and if I die, I want to die in such a way that, in my dying, I also make him look magnificent. That’s what he’s saying. Then comes the very important word for, which is a support for what he just said. He’s going to give an explanatory ground and show why Christ would be magnified whether he lives or dies.

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. (Philippians 1:21)

That’s his argument so far. And so far, it doesn’t work. It doesn’t hang together. Try to state the premises of the argument to yourself (because this is an argument). “My expectation and longing 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 have to have another premise to make that work. You can say, “My death is gain because I’m so depressed that I just want to be out of here.” Seriously, to call death gain is not to magnify Jesus. There are all kinds of reasons why people call death gain, and they don’t magnify Jesus. This is not an argument that’s going to work — yet. He’s not done. You have to keep reading to make things work in the Bible.

“Christ is made to look great in my ministry if my ministry is a means of making other people boast in Jesus.”

But 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 is Christ, and to die is gain.” He’s clearly thinking this through. He’s saying, “I want Christ to be magnified by my life, and I want Christ to be magnified by my death. The reason that he is going to be magnified by my life is that to live is Christ, and the reason Christ is going to be magnified in my death is that to die is gain.” Dying as gain will make much of Jesus, if there is another premise. So, let’s read the premise.

Paul continues,

If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me [that’s the life part]. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart [to die] and be with Christ, for that is far better. (Philippians 1:22–23)

He wants to depart because he will have greater intimacy with Jesus, and that is far better. That’s the premise that was missing. Here’s how the argument works: “My expectation and hope, my longing for my life, is that Christ will 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 put it together? Could you finish this talk? If you gave it enough thought, you could. You could put this together. That’s what we do with the Bible. We think. We meditate.

Blessed is the man who . . .
delight[s] . . . in the law of the Lord,
     and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree
     planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
     and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers. (Psalm 1:1–3)

Christ is going to be shown to be magnificent by death, and the reason is that this death of mine is experienced by me as gain. And the reason it is experienced by me as gain is because to be with Christ is far better. In my moment of death, if I 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.

I’m an old man. I pray a lot that this will happen. Satan hates me and he hates you, and in those last hours he will shoot at you with every arrow he has to make you doubt your life. He’ll tempt you to think, “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 for Christ, but the way you make Christ look glorious as you die is to treasure him more than you treasure what you leave behind. That’s the only way, which means that if you cease to pursue your pleasure in him, you cannot make him look good.

Christ Magnified in Life

That’s the first half of the argument — the death half. Now, what about the life half?

It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body . . . by life or by death. (Philippians 1:20–21)

Nobody is going to die while I’m talking, probably. Therefore, you probably have some more hours to live tonight. This is what you should be thinking about: How can you make him look magnificent in your life before you go to sleep tonight? That’s what you’re here for. It has to do with your tone of voice to your spouse in the car. It has to do with whether you are afraid when you walk through the neighborhood. It has to do with whether you are kind to the person on the corner. There are a million things that flow out of sweet restfulness in Jesus.

You want to know how to make Christ look magnificent in your life, and Paul says, “To live is Christ.” That’s not a clear sentence. I don’t know what he means when he says, “To live is Christ.” Can you unpack that for me? It sounds great. I grew up on this. But what does it mean?

It means, first, “If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me” (Philippians 1:22). That’s his first way of describing it — doing things that bear fruit. It’s not entirely clear what that means yet, but it gets us a little further along. Now, the rest of this is devoted to death, so let’s go to the next paragraph. Paul says,

But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. (Philippians 1:24)

Are we back to duty now? It’s about something on their account. His fruitful labor has to do with the Philippians.

Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all. (Philippians 1:25)

That’s likely why Paul got out of prison in Rome and made one more visit to the Philippians. I take seriously his statement: I know. He’s thinking of traveling hundreds of miles with a death sentence probably hanging over him. But he senses that, somehow, it’s going to happen. And what will happen when it does?

 . . . for your progress [advancement] and joy in the faith. (Philippians 1:25)

Paul is going to stay on the planet, Christ is going to be his life, and that will be fruitful labor toward the Philippians, which means that when he comes to minister the word of God among them, their faith will take off, and their joy of faith will swell. This is starting to get interesting.

So, Paul, you’re saying that what makes Christ look magnificent by your staying is that your staying becomes the means of their happiness in Jesus? Yes, that is what he’s saying. Then he says,

 . . . so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again. (Philippians 1:26)

One Great Boast

Let’s sum it up and see if you arrive at the same place I do. Paul said what he longs for in his life above all things is that Christ would be magnified in his bodily life, by his life. He wants Christ to look magnificent by everything he does while he’s alive. That’s going to happen, he says, because “to live is Christ.” And then he unpacks it. “To live is Christ” means that Paul will stay on earth to engage in fruitful labor. And what will be the fruit that will make Christ look magnificent?

Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith. (Philippians 1:25)

And that will also issue forth in boasting in Christ (Philippians 1:26). This word “boasting” (kauchēma) is sometimes translated as “rejoicing in,” or “boasting in,” or “exulting in.” 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 maybe, “You’re really strong. You’re really strong. You’re really wise.” When you boast in your kids when they make a great shot in basketball, you say, “Did you see that shot? That’s my kid!”

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 are most satisfied in him. Or we could say, “Christ is made to look great in my ministry if my ministry is a means of making other people boast in Jesus.”

Just to underline that, listen to what Paul says in Philippians 3:7–8:

Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.

By comparison to Jesus, everything is rubbish. That’s a pretty strong act of treasuring Jesus. It’s a very emotional act, because you have a lot of emotional things going on in the loss of all things — your marriage, your health, your house, your books, your car, your reputation. What happens if you lose it all and have Jesus? Gain.

In summary, 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. Here’s another summary statement: 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 and everything we have in life. That’s vertical Christian Hedonism.

Joy’s Overflow

Briefly, on horizontal Christian Hedonism, what does our joy in Christ have to do with our love for people? Paul says,

We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia. (2 Corinthians 8:1)

He’s writing to the Corinthians, and he’s using the Macedonians — that’s the Philippians and the Thessalonians — as an example that the Corinthians should copy. Now, what does 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, and reconciling them to God, what happened?

For in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. . . . I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine. (2 Corinthians 8:2, 8)

Paul is saying that love is the name he gives to what happened in the first two verses. He is proving, by the earnestness of others, that the Corinthians’ love is what he has 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 in the increase of it. That abundance of joy was not in the absence of poverty but in extreme poverty, which means that this joy — which is so abundant that it overflows — was not in anything that is on the planet; it was in the grace of God. They were thinking, “I’m saved! My sins are forgiven. I have the hope of eternal life. Everything is going to work together for my good. God is going to work all things together for my good. How can I not dance for joy? Poverty — what difference does it make? Affliction — what difference does it make?”

Almost nobody in this room feels that way, because we’re all so worldly. When a bad thing happens to me, I’m in God’s face. But Paul is just a crazy, radical Christian. And that’s what I want to be and what you want to be. We want to know the grace of God — to taste the love of God and the presence of God — so deeply that even though there is huge affliction and poverty that never seems to go away, our joy would be like the mountains.

On Tuesday, we met as a Teaching Team, and we were talking about how silly Christian Hedonism could sound — happy, happy, happy, happy. “Those guys at Desiring God are so superficial. Don’t they know about the wars going on? Ukraine? Gaza? There’s death everywhere.” And we were so thankful that for thirty years God has not let us be silly, and it’s because the Bible won’t let you be silly. It will not let you talk about any other joy than the joy that exists in affliction, or the joy that exists in poverty. If you don’t have joy that abounds in affliction and abounds in poverty, you don’t have Christian joy.

This is serious. You could see why we would devote our lives to this for thirty years. It’s bottomless, like an ocean with no bottom and no shore.

My conclusion is that vertical Christian Hedonism — which is happening in the connection we have with the grace of God and our abundance of joy (2 Corinthians 8:1–2) — overflows into horizontal Christian Hedonism. I couldn’t have asked 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 that if I’m not willing to lay down my life to bring you into the joy I have in God, I’m a fake. If it does not overflow in generosity, if I just have to clutch onto my stuff, I’m just loveless.

So, what is love? 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. I’m going to say that joy in God contains the impulse to expand and include others in it, whatever the cost. I don’t just stand here and say, “Wow, God, you’re great and you’re really wonderful,” and not do anything in the neighborhood and at church. That’s not Christian joy. There is an impulse coming from our joy in God to move outward. It was there in the Trinity, and it had to expand and spill over into Psalm 148. And our joy is like that too.

Try feeling complete joy in God and ignoring people. You cannot do it. You know immediately that you’re a fake. That’s not joy in God; it’s a caffeine high. Our joy overflows, whatever the cost.

Delight Yourself in God

In conclusion, to the extent that we try to abandon our pursuit of pleasure, we will fail to glorify God (vertical Christian Hedonism), and we will fail to love people (horizontal Christian Hedonism). If there isn’t an overflow to bless other people with our generosity, then it’s fake. Pursuing our pleasure in God is a necessary part of all worship and all virtue.

Therefore, “Delight yourself in the Lord” (Psalm 37:4). “Rejoice in the Lord always” (Philippians 4:4). These are commands. You don’t get any negotiation here. This is a command like, “Thou shalt not kill” (Exodus 20:13 KJV). If you’re not delighting in the Lord, you’re disobeying God, and you need to be on your face tonight before God, saying, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation” (Psalm 51:12). I assume David prayed that often.

Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. (2 Corinthians 9:7)

If you are giving generously with no joy in it or in the expansion of joy into others, you’re only halfway there.