Don’t ‘Dutifully Date’ Jesus
- Message Excerpt by
- Scripture: Job 22:24–26 Topic: Christian Hedonism
Audio Transcript
How does a life devoted to satisfaction in Christ glorify Christ? Now, you all know intuitively that it does. Yes, you do. Every single person in this room knows it, unless you’re mentally ill — and I mean that seriously. Mentally ill people may not be able to grasp this kind of thing, and it’s tragic.
You all know that to spend time with someone because you have to is belittling to them. And to spend time with them because you want to honors them. Every single one of you knows that. You feel it. It’s written on your heart.
“When you desire Christ above all things, you implicitly show that Christ is valuable, precious, desirable — a treasure.”
Dutiful dating is demeaning. Dating for joy is honoring. Everybody knows this. Most people have probably never articulated it to themselves. They just live it. They know this — unless they’re sick. But how does it work? We all know it’s true. It does work.
Let me take you to a passage in Job. I know it’s spoken by Eliphaz: bad guy with very good theology — totally misused. Ninety percent of what Job’s counselors say is right, and then they use it all wrong. They hurt people with it. So, if he hadn’t used this sentence against Job, we would all sing it, and I am going to read it as true, because it is true. Here’s what he said:
If you lay gold in the dust . . . then the Almighty will be your gold. . . . For then you will delight yourself in the Almighty. (Job 22:24–26)
This is the meaning of Jesus’s statement, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). If you stop seeing earthly gold as your treasure, and you start seeing the Almighty as your treasure, your heart will follow this new seeing with delight.
Which means that you can follow that experience backward as well. Where a person finds supreme delight in God as his gold, God is shown to be a treasure, and the gold of the earth inferior. And there is the answer to how a life devoted to satisfaction in Christ glorifies Christ.
When you desire Christ above all things, you implicitly show that Christ is valuable, precious, desirable — a treasure. And the more intensely you desire him, and the more suffering you are willing to endure without losing your satisfaction in him, the more valuable you show him to be.
That is the meaning of glorifying Christ. That’s what it means. The intensity of my treasuring communicates the worth of the treasure. That’s what it means to glorify the treasure. Christ is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him.
Therefore, yes, Christian Hedonism — a life devoted to enjoying Christ above all — is essential for the human heart to glorify Christ as he deserves.
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