Audio Transcript

Christian Hedonism is not theory. It’s a life practice. It’s a heart cry, a desire for more of God and to share in more of his glory. So it’s no surprise to me that we get a lot of emails from people who are asking for very practical help. They ask questions like “How do I become more happy in God?” “What do I do to find it, to get it, and to keep it?” “What kind of daily habits and practices will lead me deeper in my joy in God?” These are all great questions in line with this email from an anonymous young man.

“Pastor John, hello, and thank you for this outlet where I can ask you my question. Now, I must admit that I am a little ADHD and autistic, so it’s very possible that I have missed what you have said in the past, but I feel like in all this Christian Hedonism teaching, you never actually say how to get more satisfied in Christ. I’ve bought a lot of your books and read them. I ask God every day to fill me in his satisfaction. And I read my Bible every day. Besides reading my Bible and praying every day, what else is there to do? What am I missing?”

More than once, Jesus spoke about his joy becoming our joy. And if you think about it, that’s absolutely astounding. The joy of the Son of God becoming my joy — absolutely astounding.

He said, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you” — my joy in you — “and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11). And here’s something I hadn’t noticed before yesterday. Surely it is very significant that Paul the apostle speaks similarly. He says in 2 Corinthians 2:3, “I felt sure of all of you, that my joy would be the joy of you all.” My conclusion from what Jesus said and what Paul said is that there is a holy contagion in Christ-exalting joy.

So, one answer to this young man’s heart cry of how to be more fully satisfied in Christ is to draw near and hear, see, taste the joy of others. There’s something about the stories of other people’s experience of God that opens our heart to similar experiences. We see their experience of joy in God, and we say, “There it is. I see it. I hear it. I get it. That’s what it’s like right there. He’s doing it.” And that moment can be an awakening existential appropriation of the other person’s joy in his own heart.

What I thought I would do in answer to the question is roundabout: I’ll simply take a few minutes and tell the story of Hudson Taylor’s quest for this very satisfaction and how he found it. So, listen to the story.

Made a New Man

In 1865, when Hudson Taylor was in Britain at age 33 years old, God gave him the vision for founding the China Inland Mission. And later (I think about a year later), he, his family, and sixteen new missionary recruits sailed for China with no guaranteed salaries. And he would press on in this leadership of the mission for another forty years. (Amazing life. I recommend that you read Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret.)

Three years later — he’s been on the field now for numerous years, but it’s been three years since he had the vision. He’s walked through so many frustrations, temptations, failures in holiness, weakness of joy, and suddenly, an epoch-making experience happened. On September 4, 1869, in Xinjiang, he exulted to one of his associates like this: “Oh, Mr. Judd, God has made me a new man! God has made me a new man!” (156).

“Deep, restful, joyful satisfaction in Jesus is a gift.”

Now, what happened that day was not ephemeral. I mean, a lot of us have had mountaintop experiences, right? And three days later we’re back where we were. This was not ephemeral. He looked back and wrote about it thirty years later, giving thanks for the abiding effect of that experience. And here’s what he wrote:

We shall never forget the blessing we received through the words, in John iv. 14, “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him SHALL NEVER THIRST,” nearly thirty years ago. As we realized that Christ literally meant what He said — that “shall” meant shall, and “never” meant never, and “thirst” meant thirst — our heart overflowed with joy as we accepted the gift. Oh, the thirst with which we had sat down, but oh, the joy with which we sprang from our seat, praising the Lord that the thirsting days were all past, and past for ever!

Now, we should be careful here of being cynical. I mean, my bent is to say, Come on. He’s not naive. He’s speaking of a thirty-year-long experience during which he did battle with some very low times. When he says “the thirsting days were all past,” he does not mean he never desired Jesus again. He doesn’t mean he never longed for more of Christ again.

His whole life became revolutionized by this experience. So, what happened?

One with Jesus

On September 4, 1869, when he was 37, Taylor found a letter waiting for him at Xinjiang from John McCarthy. God used the letter to revolutionize Taylor’s life. He said,

When my agony of soul was at its height, a sentence [mark that — a sentence] in a letter from dear McCarthy was used to remove the scales from my eyes, and the Spirit of God revealed to me the truth of our oneness with Jesus as I had never known it before. (Spiritual Secret, 163)

That’s an important statement: “as I had never known it before.” So, notice two things. One is that the change in Hudson Taylor didn’t come from new information. He knew this. He knew the teaching that he was talking about, and he had read the Bible a hundred times. It was one sentence about an old truth. And we’ve all had this experience, right? The same truth we have read a hundred times in the Bible suddenly explodes with new power in our lives. That happened for Taylor.

And along with that came a new sight of Christ’s fullness and his union with Christ. There was also new yieldedness, a glad, unreserved handing over of self and everything to Jesus. This new yieldedness was so powerful, so sweet, so supernatural that it rose up like an indictment against all vain striving. When you have been swept up in the arms of Jesus like he was at that moment, all previous efforts to jump in seem vain. That’s what he’d been trying to do: I’ve got to climb into the arms of Jesus!

In other words, deep, restful, joyful satisfaction in Jesus is a gift and, in the end, not the result of striving. For Hudson Taylor, the heart of his discovery was that the fruit of the vine comes from abiding, not striving. That’s the way he would put it. “To let my loving Savior work in me His will, my sanctification, is what I would live for by His grace. Abiding, not striving nor struggling; looking off unto Him; trusting Him for present power; . . . resting in the love of an almighty Savior,” he wrote (158).

So, this singular experience gave vivid meaning to the difference between the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit in a fresh way, a life-changing way, for Hudson Taylor. He said, “Work is the outcome of effort; fruit, of life. A bad man may do good work, but a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.”

Mystery of Christian Joy

Now, Hudson Taylor (and others at that time) have been criticized for overemphasizing the passive aspect of sanctification. And there are passages — we’ve seen them already — in Taylor that sound that way, as though the New Testament portrayed no pursuit, no effort, no struggle on our part once we’re saved. But when you study his life, you realize he was not that lopsided. He wrote,

Communion with Christ requires our coming to Him. Meditating upon His person and His work requires the diligent use of the means of grace, and specially the prayerful reading of His Word. Many fail to abide because they habitually fast instead of feed. (Hudson Taylor’s Choice Sayings, 2)

The reason Christian joy is so mysterious is that, on the one hand, it is a completely free gift of God to be received, not earned, not achieved by human effort. And yet that free gift comes through our practical experiences of seeing Christ in his word and serving him in the obedience of faith. It’s a mystery. And Hudson Taylor believed that God worked a miracle that day, lifting the scales from his eyes — his Christian eyes, yes — so that something new about abiding in Christ gripped him very deeply and never left him.

Never Stop Wanting

So, a closing word to our young friend who wrote this question. Whether God gives you a crisis moment of realization that lasts for a lifetime, as he did Hudson Taylor, or whether he leads you deeper over time, step by step, don’t settle for anything less than what Paul experienced in Philippians 4 (in every situation content in Christ) and what he prayed for in Ephesians 3:19 (that you might be filled with all the fullness of God).

Don’t stop wanting that. Don’t stop pursuing that. But it is a gift. And if Taylor were here, he would say, “It’s yours. It’s yours in union with Christ. Possess it. Abide in it like a branch in a vine. Enjoy it.”