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Why Call It Christian Hedonism? | John Piper · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reformed Thinking. This is the deep dive where we
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  take your source material, your books and articles, and we try
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  to distill the key insights, especially for concepts that can
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  feel a bit confusing or maybe even contradictory.
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  And today we are definitely wading into some choppy
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  theological waters. We're wrestling with a phrase
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  that, I mean, on the surface, just feels like a complete
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  contradiction. It does Christian hedonism.
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  You sent over a whole stack of material that outlines the
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  definition, the theological arguments for it.
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  And this is the part I find most interesting, the reasons for
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  choosing such an arresting and, let's be honest, a polarizing
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  name. Right, the name itself is has
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  the battle. It is so our mission for you,
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  the listener, isn't to debate whether the theology is right or
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  wrong. It's really to get clarity on
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  what it means and maybe more to the point, what it doesn't mean.
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  We're going to do that by sorting through the six main
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  reasons of people behind this decided to use that specific
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  term. It was a calculated risk for
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  sure. A.
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  Huge risk and we have to start by just acknowledging that
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  tension. The source material itself
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  brings it up by quoting figures like JC Ryle, who, you know, he
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  specifically warned the church against using uncouth and
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  newfangled terms when you're talking about sanctification.
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  Yeah. Deep matters of the faith.
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  And hedonism seems to fly right in the face of that advice.
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  So the big question is why? Why invite what you know is
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  going to be a storm of misunderstanding?
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  And that question, why invite the storm, is really the only
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  place you can start. The whole defense of the term
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  hinges on this idea that the initial shock, that jolt you
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  feel when you hear it, is 100% intentional.
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  It's a feature, not a bug. It is.
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  It's a calculated risk meant to wake people up.
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  So to ground this we first have to look at how the sources
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  define the word itself. You know the non Christian term
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  they just pull from standard dictionary.
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  One definition is simply a living for pleasure.
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  Another one is the pursuit of or devotion to pleasure.
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  Pretty straightforward, right? Standard stuff.
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  But then if you take those definitions and you put them
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  right next to the tradition we hold to, you know, the
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  Westminster Shorter Catechism. Man's chief end.
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  Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
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  And suddenly a connection just kind of snaps into focus.
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  The whole thesis of this philosophy is that human life
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  should be a living for pleasure. But, and this is the whole game,
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  that pleasure has to be aimed at the right object.
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  OK, aimed at God. Aimed at God, who's the only
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  true, satisfying and everlasting source of real delight.
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  So if there's one single idea, one statement to hold onto
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  through this whole discussion, what would it be?
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  It's this God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied
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  in Him. That sentence is the safeguard
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  for the whole philosophy. So glorifying God in our
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  satisfaction aren't 2 separate goals.
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  No, they're not even competing goals.
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  They're inseparable. 1 is the means to the other.
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  The argument is that if you try to pull God's glory and human
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  satisfaction apart, the whole thing just collapses.
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  You either end up with a self-centered indulgence on one
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  side or this joyless, grim duty on the other.
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  This concept insists there are two sides of the same coin.
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  OK, let's unpack that central definition right there, because
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  I think this is where a lot of the maybe the philosophical
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  confusion starts. It's why the term often gets
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  dismissed before anyone gives it a serious look.
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  When you hear hedonism in, say, an academic setting, it means
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  something very specific and technical, and it's something
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  that this Christian concept says no, that's not what we're
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  talking about. The source material is very
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  clear on this. It points out a technical
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  definition from philosophy, a theory called psychological
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  hedonism or psychological egoism, which.
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  Sounds complicated, but it's not.
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  Right. It's basically a theory of
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  motivation. It claims that a person is
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  always motivated to do one thing over another if and only if they
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  think it will be more pleasant, or at least less unpleasant for
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  themselves. It's a claim about how all
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  humans work all the time. It's a descriptive claim.
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  It's trying to describe reality as it is.
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  And the proponent of Christian hedonism makes a very sharp
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  break here. They state very clearly that
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  this technical descriptive theory, this claim that all
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  human action is really at its root just self-interest, that is
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  not what Christian hedonism is about.
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  Yeah, that distinction is absolutely crucial.
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  If you miss this, you're going to miss the entire point.
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  Philosophical egoism, that descriptive theory.
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  It tries to look at every human action, even the most heroic or
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  seemingly selfless ones, and it just reduces them down to a
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  hidden motive of self satisfaction.
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  So even giving to charity is, at its root, just about making
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  yourself feel good. According to that theory, yes,
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  it says you are motivated by pleasure, whether you admit it
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  or not. But the sources here reject that
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  framework entirely, and they do it for a pretty straightforward
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  theological reason, the fall of man.
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  Fallen humanity does seek pleasure, of course, but we seek
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  it in all the wrong places. We make idols out of created
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  things instead of worshipping the Creator.
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  So that descriptive theory is just not adequate.
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  It can't account for the fact that we have to be taught how to
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  find pleasure in the right thing in God.
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  So OK, if the focus is not on describing what currently
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  motivates people, what is the focus on?
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  The focus shifts completely. It moves from a descriptive
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  claim to a normative 1. A prescriptive A.
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  Prescriptive one. It's an assertion.
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  The claim is that all people should be motivated by the
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  pursuit of full, deep, lasting satisfaction in God.
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  It's not describing our default setting.
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  It's a radical command to reorient every desire, every
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  motivation, every single thing you chase after toward the one
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  object that can actually satisfy.
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  It so it's not saying this is how you are, it's saying this is
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  how you ought to be. That's it.
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  If the chief end of man involves enjoyment, then the pursuit of
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  that satisfaction isn't just an option.
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  It's the norm. It's the duty.
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  And this is where the word hedonism, when you strip it of
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  all its worldly baggage, actually starts to fit.
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  Because of those dictionary definitions.
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  Right. A living for pleasure, the
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  pursuit of pleasure. Those phrases align perfectly
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  with the idea that the Christian life is the ultimate search for
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  fulfillment. But, and this is key, it's a
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  fulfillment that the sources insist can only be found in God.
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  It's the greatest search for the greatest satisfaction.
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  And this brings us back to that adjective, the word Christian.
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  It seems a little redundant if we're already talking about
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  glorifying God, but the sources say it's essential.
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  Why? It's essential because of that
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  fallen nature we just mentioned. People are already hedonists.
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  I mean in the world we sense everyone is 1.
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  Everyone is pursuing satisfaction in something.
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  Everyone, whatever you take the most pleasure in, whatever
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  you're most satisfied by, your career, your family, your
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  comfort, your hobbies, that thing becomes your functional
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  God, your ultimate good. So Christian hedonism isn't
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  giving people a new permission to seek pleasure, it's
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  recognizing they already do it. And then it gives them a divine
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  command to re aim that built in desire.
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  It says that longing you have for infinite satisfaction.
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  It's good, but your targets are way too small.
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  So the Christian qualifier commands that the pleasure
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  seeking has to be aimed at God. It has to be focused on God and
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  defined by scripture. It acts as a guardrail, keeping
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  the whole concept from just becoming another excuse for
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  selfish living. Let's stay on that for a second
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  because I think a lot of listeners might hear that core
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  statement. God is most glorified in us when
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  we are most satisfied in Him, and they might immediately get
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  nervous. It could sound like a huge
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  emotional burden. How so?
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  Like, if I don't feel happy enough right now, does that mean
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  I'm failing to glorify God? I can see that leading to a kind
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  of emotional legalism. How do the sources handle that?
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  That's a great question, and it's something a deep dive
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  really has to address. The definition of satisfaction
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  here is theological, not just psychological.
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  It's not about a fleeting mood or a happiness that depends on
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  your circumstances. It's about joy.
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  It's about joy, which is rooted in the objective reality of who
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  God is and what he has done. The Westminster Confession talks
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  about enjoying him forever, which implies a state of being,
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  a relationship, a deep seated adoration, not a constant
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  emotional high. If it were just about a mood,
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  then things like suffering or weakness would be opposed to
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  Christian living. Of course, but the sources argue
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  the opposite. They say that hardship, when you
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  face it in faith, can actually increase this God centered
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  pleasure. The satisfaction we're talking
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  about is that deep spiritual pleasure of knowing God is all
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  you need, even when and especially when your outward
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  circumstances are falling apart. The pleasure of finding refuge
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  in His sovereignty. That's it.
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  So the burden isn't on you to somehow manufacture a happy
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  feeling. The burden, or rather the
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  discipline, is to diligently seek your satisfaction in God's
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  character. And that often requires a
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  difficult, arduous reorientation of your heart away from all the
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  other things competing for your affection.
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  The discipline is in redirecting the pursuit, not in faking the
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  feeling. OK, that clarifies a lot.
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  So if we're clear on the definition and the difference
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  between the normative claim and the descriptive one, the next
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  question is, is this a new idea? Are the proponents of this the
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  first to try and reclaim the language of pleasure for
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  spiritual ends? Not at all.
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  The sources suggest not. And this gets us to the second
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  big reason for the term. There's historical and literary
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  precedent. Other thinkers, who the sources
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  describe as smarter and older, felt a similar need to connect
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  spiritual life with the language of pleasure and satisfaction.
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  Which shows that the concept, at least, isn't new, even if the
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  label feels modern. Right.
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  And the most compelling example cited is CS Lewis.
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  It almost always comes back to Lewis, doesn't it?
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  Specifically, his letters to Malcolm.
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  In it, Lewis is counseling his friend on how to handle the
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  spontaneous enjoyment you get from nature.
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  He calls them sunbeams in a wood.
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  OK, so just those simple, unexpected delights.
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  Exactly. And Lewis saw that many
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  believers, especially in his day, felt a kind of guilt or
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  suspicion about intense earthly pleasure.
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  They'd wonder, is this a distraction?
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  Am I being idolatrous by enjoying this beautiful sunset
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  too much? Should I be thinking about
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  something more spiritual right now?
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  Yes, and Lewis's advice was pretty radical, he says.
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  These moments of pleasure, a good meal, a beautiful piece of
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  music, the sunlight in a wood, He calls them patches of God,
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  light. Patches of God light I.
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  Like they're gifts of temporary delight.
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  But here's the key. They are not the destination.
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  They're signposts. If your enjoyment stops with the
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  created thing, if it terminates on the sunbeam itself, then that
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  pleasure can become an idol. It becomes a distraction.
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  But Lewis offers an alternative. He does, he says.
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  The proper response, the right direction for that delight, is
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  to let one's mind run back up the sunbeam to the sun.
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  The sunbeam is wonderful, but the sun that creates it is the
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  actual source of all light and warmth.
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  The gift is meant to make you love the giver more.
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  That distinction, enjoying the gift versus tracing it back to
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  the giver, that seems to be the absolute core of the difference
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  between worldly hedonism and this Christian version.
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  It is everything worldly hedonism builds a house in the
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  sunbeam and forgets the sun exists.
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  And it's in thinking about how hard that redirection is that
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  Lewis makes this really direct comment.
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  He sees the spiritual work it takes to constantly pull our
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  desires, which just want to cling to the immediate pleasure
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  and point them toward the invisible source.
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  And this is the quote the sources highlight, Lewis says.
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  If this is hedonism, it is also a somewhat arduous discipline.
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  Arduous discipline? That quote is so important, the
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  sources don't treat that as just some throwaway line.
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  Lewis is making a key point about the Christian life.
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  Why arduous? Why not just call it an easy
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  delight? Because the discipline is the
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  fight against our own fallen nature.
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  It's the struggle against idolatry which is really just
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  finding our main satisfaction in anything less than God.
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  It's so easy to just enjoy the sun meme.
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  It is hard work to train your heart and mind day after day to
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  use every good gift as a tool to leverage your affections upward
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  toward the giver. It's not a passive experience.
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  No, the pursuit of your ultimate satisfaction in God is not a
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  path of easy comfort. It requires spiritual work, the
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  daily grind of repentance and recentering, and a constant
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  battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil.
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  It's a pleasure, but it's a hard one pleasure.
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  So Lewis gives us the framework from literature and natural
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  delight. But then the source is bringing
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  another powerful voice, shifting from the goodness of creation to
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  the dangers of comfort. And they do this through Sir and
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  Kierkegaard. Yes, through the work of a
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  writer named Vernard Eller, who uses 1 of Kierkegaard's
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  parables, The Lighted Carriage and The Starlit Knight.
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  Eller calls this situation the Crisis of Christian Hedonism.
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  Tell us the parable. It's a very striking image.
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  It's incredibly vivid. It sets up the sharp contrast.
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  On one hand, you have a prosperous man.
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  He's riding in a comfortable carriage at night.
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  He has lanterns lit and they're attached close to him, lighting
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  up the road right in front. He's safe, he's warm, he's
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  comfortable. He has his own little bubble of
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  light. But the very presence of those
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  lights, his comfort, his safety, his immediate satisfaction, it
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  does something crucial. It blinds him to the greater
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  reality above. He cannot see the magnificent
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  stars, the vastness of the heavens, because his own
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  self-made light is too bright and too close.
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  And the contrast to him? The contrast is a poor peasant.
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  He's driving without lights, or maybe with just a tiny dim one.
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  His journey is harder, more dangerous.
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  He's exposed. But, and this is the point,
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  precisely because he isn't surrounded by the immediate
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  comfort of the carriage lights, his eyes can adjust.
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  He is able to see the glorious, immense reality of the starlit
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  night. And Ellar's interpretation of
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  this is what connects it back to our topic.
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  What did Eller say the view of the stars was?
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  Eller says the view of the stars represents one's awareness and
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  enjoyment of God. Parable is a warning.
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  It shows how being too surrounded by two, preoccupied
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  with the temporal comforts of this life, the carriage lights,
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  can completely blind you to the eternal reality of God's glory.
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  So your immediate smaller pleasures can block out the
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  greatest pleasure. They can The prosperous person,
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  the busy person, the comfortable person finds that everything
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  right around them is satisfactory.
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  It's pleasant, but the grand view, the actual awareness and
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  enjoyment of God Himself, the starlet reality is missing
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  because the little lights are too distracting.
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  So this means that when Christians talk about things
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  like simplicity or fasting, it's not about making ourselves
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  miserable for the sake of being miserable.
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  Not at all. It's not about asceticism for
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  its own sake. The point is not the enjoyment
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  of simplicity. The motive for Christian
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  simplicity, Eller argues, is the enjoyment of God himself.
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  Simplicity is just turning down the carriage lights.
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  That's the perfect way to put it.
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  You turn down the lights so you can see the stars.
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  If being wealthy or busy or entertained is blocking your
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  view of God's glory, then those things need to be disciplined or
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  even set aside. Not because they're evil in
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  themselves, but because they are lesser pleasures that are
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  blinding you to the greatest one.
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  And after laying all this out, Eller makes the same move Lewis
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  did. He does.
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  After explaining this hard discipline, Eller fully embraces
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  the controversial word and says, And if that be hedonism, let's
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  make the most of it. It's a defiant statement.
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  It's saying if pursuing the highest possible enjoyment in
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  the only object that can truly provide it, God is going to be
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  labeled A hedonism, then fine, let's be the best hedonists of
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  that kind the world has ever seen.
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  And it connects back to another of Kierkegaard's ideas, his
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  concept of absolute joy. This isn't just about feeling
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  good on a nice. No absolute joy, as Kierkegaard
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  defines it, is about adoring the almighty quality with which God
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  bears all our care and all our sorrow.
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  It's a joy you find not in the absence of problems, but in the
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  sufficiency of God in the middle of your problems.
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  It's the joy of knowing he's in control.
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  The source of the joy is God's character, not your
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  circumstances. OK, that makes sense.
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  So this leads us to the third big reason for the terminology,
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  and this is where it gets even more direct.
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  It's the intentional arresting and jolting effect.
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  The shock treatment. The shock treatment The term is
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  not meant to be comfortable. Its main goal is to wake people
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  up to biblical truths that have been forgotten or, you know,
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  softened over time. The sources are pretty blunt
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  here. They say Christian hedonism is
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  extremely threatening to nominal Christians.
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  It's meant to shake up anyone who has settled into a kind of
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  respectable but joyless routine of obedience, where God is more
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  like a taskmaster than a satisfying father.
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  And you see that gravity in the title of a major work on this
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  subject, The Dangerous Duty of Delight.
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  Dangerous duty. That phrase says it all.
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  This isn't a friendly suggestion.
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  It's a command, and a terrifying one at that.
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  It is. That phrase implies that failing
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  to delight in God isn't just a sign of spiritual immaturity,
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  it's a serious soul endangering offense.
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  The term Christian hedonism is meant to awaken people to the
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  eternal stakes of spiritual apathy.
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  And to back this up, the sources point to some truly shocking
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  warnings from the Bible. OK, what's the 1st?
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  One, the first one, is Christ's critique of the lukewarm church.
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  In Revelation 3.16 He says because you are lukewarm and
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  neither cold nor hot, I will spit you out of my mouth.
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  It's such a visceral image. It is.
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  Being lukewarm is about being spiritually apathetic.
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  It's a lack of ferdant desire, which has to include a lack of
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  passionate delight in God. God, if a lack of delight makes
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  you spiritually lukewarm, and being lukewarm gets you spit
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  out, then joylessness is an urgent spiritual disease.
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  But hold on, there's a tension there, right?
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  If we're commanded to delight, and not delighting has such
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  severe consequences, doesn't that start to sound like a works
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  based system? Like salvation depends on my
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  emotional performance. And that's the very tension the
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  sources want to create so they can resolve it.
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  It does sound like works if you separate the duty from the gift
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  within the Westminster framework.
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  If the chief end is to glorify God by enjoying Him, then the
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  only way to genuinely glorify Him is to find genuine
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  satisfaction in Him. A joyless obedience doesn't
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  glorify God. It glorifies the self.
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  It says, look how dutiful I am, even though I find God to be a
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  boring master. The sources would argue that the
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  duty to delight is really the duty to see God as He is, as
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  infinitely delightful. Psalm 37.4 Delight yourself.
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  And the Lord isn't a command to fake a feeling.
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  It's a command to reorient your heart toward the only source
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  that can produce that delight for real.
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  So the failure to delight is a rejection of God's worthiness,
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  of his sufficiency, and the consequences are bigger than
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  just missing out on some personal happiness.
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  They're huge. The sources point to what might
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  be one of the most sobering warnings in the whole Old
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  Testament, Deuteronomy 28.4748. What does it say?
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  It warns Israel that if they do not serve the Lord their God
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  with joyfulness and gladness of heart because of the abundance
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  of all things, what's the result?
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  They will instead serve your enemies, whom the Lord will send
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  against. You so joyless service leads to
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  slavery. Leads to slavery, hunger,
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  thirst, nakedness, total want. The penalty for joylessness is
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  not just a lack of reward, it is active judgement.
• 19:12
  The failure to find satisfaction in God, even though He has given
• 19:15
  you everything, is seen as such a deep rebellion against His
• 19:18
  goodness that the judgement fits the crime.
• 19:21
  Which brings us to a quote from Jeremy Taylor, which sort of
• 19:23
  summarizes this whole shocking aspect.
• 19:25
  Yes, Taylor's statement is designed to stop you in your
• 19:27
  tracks, he says. God threatens terrible things if
• 19:30
  we will not be happy. It sounds absurd when you first
• 19:32
  hear it. It does, but the sources show
• 19:35
  the logic. God commands us to be happy, but
• 19:39
  He defines that happiness as finding our satisfaction in Him.
• 19:43
  Our unhappiness, our lack of delight in Him, is an insult to
• 19:46
  His glory, and so it carries a heavy price.
• 19:49
  This pursuit of joy is so central to glorifying Him that
• 19:53
  it justifies using a term strong enough to smash through our
• 19:56
  spiritual numbness. So the argument is that the term
• 19:59
  hedonism doesn't actually create a new stumbling block, it just
• 20:02
  reveals that the truth itself is a stumbling block.
• 20:05
  Yes, and in a way you don't expect.
• 20:07
  It challenges the idea that serious faith has to be grim or
• 20:11
  stoic. It jars people into facing a
• 20:13
  Bible that demands not just obedience, but enthusiastic,
• 20:17
  passionate delight. And that leads right into the
• 20:19
  fourth reason there's scriptural precedent for redeeming worldly,
• 20:23
  even negative, language. Right.
• 20:25
  If the trained hedonism feels too worldly, the proponents say,
• 20:28
  we'll just look at how Scripture itself uses shocking language to
• 20:31
  talk about divine things. If the biblical authors weren't
• 20:33
  afraid to do it, why should we be?
• 20:35
  What are some of the key examples they use to back that
• 20:37
  up? They list several that are
• 20:38
  pretty jarring if you stop and think about them.
• 20:41
  Take Jesus describing his second coming.
• 20:43
  This is the great day of judgement and righteousness.
• 20:46
  And what does he compare his arrival to?
• 20:49
  The coming of a thief in the night.
• 20:51
  A thief, a symbol of violation and terror.
• 20:54
  Right. He uses that image for his own
• 20:57
  return. Or think about the parable of
• 20:59
  the dishonest manager in Luke 16.
• 21:01
  Jesus actually holds this guy up as an example.
• 21:04
  He praises him. He praises a crook.
• 21:05
  Now he's obviously not endorsing the dishonesty.
• 21:09
  He's using this shocking worldly figure to make a spiritual point
• 21:13
  about being shrewd and urgent and preparing for eternity.
• 21:17
  The shock value is the whole point of the lesson.
• 21:19
  There's an Old Testament example.
• 21:20
  Too, Yes, from Psalm 78. The psalmist is describing the
• 21:23
  Lord waking up to fight for his people, and the image is so raw.
• 21:27
  He says God awoke like a strongman shouting because of
• 21:30
  wine. It uses an image of worldly
• 21:32
  intoxication to convey God's unstoppable, overwhelming power.
• 21:36
  So the conclusion is, if Scripture can redeem words like
• 21:39
  thief and dishonest manager and a man shouting from wine, then
• 21:43
  taking the word hedonism and applying it to the passion for
• 21:46
  glorifying God through enjoying him, that's well within the
• 21:50
  biblical pattern. The word is shocked into a new
• 21:52
  kind of service. It's all about the object.
• 21:55
  The argument is that the meaning of a word is defined by its
• 21:57
  context and its object. When the object of your pleasure
• 22:01
  seeking shifts from yourself to God, the meaning of the word
• 22:04
  itself is sanctified. It's redeemed for a higher
• 22:07
  purpose. OK, that brings us to the fifth
• 22:10
  reason, which gets even more specific.
• 22:12
  It focuses on the Greek linguistic root of the word
• 22:15
  hedonism itself, showing that it was already being used for
• 22:19
  spiritual experiences by the Apostle Paul.
• 22:22
  This is a fascinating point. It shows Paul had no problem
• 22:25
  using the language of pleasure, of gladness, in situations that
• 22:28
  were full of pain and difficulty.
• 22:30
  The sources point to his use of the Greek word hadista.
• 22:33
  What does that word mean? Hadista is the superlative form
• 22:36
  of Hades, which means sweet or pleasant.
• 22:39
  So hadista means most gladly or most pleasantly, and it's the
• 22:44
  direct linguistic ancestor of our English word hedonism.
• 22:48
  And Paul uses this word. He does, and in contexts that
• 22:51
  are just staggering, look at 2nd Corinthians 12.9.
• 22:54
  This is right after Paul talks about his thorn in the flesh.
• 22:56
  And the Lord told him, My grace is sufficient for you, for my
• 22:59
  ability is made perfect in weakness.
• 23:02
  Paul's response is therefore I will boast all the more gladly,
• 23:06
  Haidista or hedonistically, of my weaknesses.
• 23:09
  He uses a pleasure word to talk about boasting in his weakness.
• 23:13
  That's the opposite of how the world thinks about pleasure.
• 23:15
  It's the ultimate spiritual reversal, and it's completely
• 23:18
  deliberate. Paul is saying.
• 23:20
  I find my greatest satisfaction, my greatest pleasure, in the
• 23:23
  very things that make me weak, because that's the space where
• 23:26
  God's strength is most obvious. He's experiencing a deep
• 23:29
  spiritual hood and ismotes in his own lack of
• 23:31
  self-sufficiency. And he uses it again just a
• 23:33
  little later, right, Connecting it to sacrificial service.
• 23:36
  Yes, in 2nd Corinthians 12 to 15, he's talking about his
• 23:40
  ministry to the church in Corinth.
• 23:41
  And he says I will most gladly adista or he genetically spend
• 23:46
  and be spent for your souls. Spending and being spent.
• 23:49
  That means giving everything. Everything, his time, his money,
• 23:52
  his energy, facing poverty, persecution, eventually death,
• 23:56
  all for their benefit. And he calls this process most
• 24:00
  pleasant. Think about how shocking that
• 24:02
  is. Paul takes an ordinary pleasure
• 24:04
  word, a word that the sources say had no special spiritual
• 24:07
  connotations in his day, and he applies it to weakness, to
• 24:10
  suffering, to total self giving love.
• 24:13
  So if Paul can use hadista to describe the spiritual joy he
• 24:16
  finds a weakness and sacrifice, then using its English
• 24:19
  derivative hedonism to describe the pursuit of joy in God, it's
• 24:23
  just following his lead. It's following his radical
• 24:25
  linguistic principle. It's a choice to take an
• 24:27
  ordinary cultural word pleasure seeking and redeem it for a
• 24:30
  spiritual purpose, forcing people to confront what true
• 24:33
  spiritual satisfaction actually looks like.
• 24:35
  And that brings us perfectly to the 6th and final reason, which
• 24:39
  is really the safety net for the whole concept, the adjective
• 24:43
  Christian. If the first five points justify
• 24:47
  the noun, this last one defines and protects it.
• 24:51
  It is the non negotiable anchor. The sources are clear that this
• 24:54
  adjective isn't just for decoration.
• 24:56
  It's a restriction. It shouts.
• 24:58
  This is no ordinary hedonism. So what does that mean in
• 25:02
  practice? It means that every claim made
• 25:04
  under this banner, every part of this philosophy, must be solidly
• 25:08
  rooted in the Christian Scriptures.
• 25:10
  The Bible. The Bible alone gets to be the
• 25:13
  authority that defines the object of our pleasure, which is
• 25:16
  God. It defines the proper ways to
• 25:18
  pursue that pleasure and what the results should be.
• 25:21
  The pursuit isn't something we invent for ourselves.
• 25:23
  It's dictated by Scripture. So that's the defense against
• 25:26
  someone who tries to use this to justify sin.
• 25:29
  So I'm saying, well, I find pleasure in doing this sinful
• 25:31
  thing, so I'm just being a good Christian heatonist.
• 25:33
  That argument gets shut down immediately because the
• 25:36
  scriptures, which define what Christian means, command
• 25:39
  holiness, self-control, love for your neighbor, true satisfaction
• 25:43
  in God as the Bible defines it, can't be separated from
• 25:46
  repentance and sanctification. The pursuit of biblical pleasure
• 25:50
  can never lead to unbiblical behavior.
• 25:53
  If it does, you're not pursuing pleasure in God anymore.
• 25:56
  You're not. You've shifted your target to a
• 25:58
  lesser created thing. It stops being Christian and it
• 26:02
  just goes back to being plain old worldly hedonism.
• 26:04
  And this brings us full circle, right back to the theological
• 26:07
  foundation we started with. Anne's chief end is to glorify
• 26:10
  God by enjoying him forever. By enjoying Him forever, the
• 26:14
  Christian modifier ensures that the pleasure we seek is defined
• 26:17
  by and directed toward the God of the Bible.
• 26:19
  It keeps the pursuit of satisfaction from stopping at
• 26:21
  ourselves or anything else in creation.
• 26:24
  The whole idea stands or falls on that synthesis.
• 26:27
  Seeking your fullest satisfaction in God is the way
• 26:29
  that God gets the most glory from you.
• 26:32
  That's a key clarification. This isn't a self help strategy
• 26:35
  where your satisfaction is the end goal.
• 26:37
  God's glory is the end goal. Your satisfaction is just the
• 26:40
  required means to get there. Because when you enjoy God
• 26:43
  completely, you can't help but show the world how worthy He is
• 26:47
  of that enjoyment. And that's why they are tied so
• 26:49
  tightly together. It's a corrective.
• 26:51
  It stops people from settling for a joyless duty, which
• 26:54
  implies God isn't very satisfying.
• 26:56
  And it stops people from seeking A godless pleasure, which
• 26:59
  implies God isn't central. The term is an aggressive, maybe
• 27:03
  even radical, attempt to force those two things back together
• 27:06
  using language strong enough have to challenge how we
• 27:08
  normally think. So the difficulty of the term,
• 27:11
  the intellectual work it requires, even the offense it
• 27:14
  can cause, all of that is seen as an acceptable cost to make
• 27:18
  one single powerful point. God demands our delight, and
• 27:21
  that delight is the highest act of worship we can offer.
• 27:24
  This has been a really clarifying deep dive into what
• 27:27
  is, I think we can agree, one of the most arresting theological
• 27:30
  phrases out there. We've seen that the term
• 27:32
  Christian hedonism isn't an accident.
• 27:35
  It's a deliberate choice. It's justified by dictionary
• 27:38
  definitions, by the thinking of people like CS Lewis, by the
• 27:42
  Warning and Kierkegaard's parable, and by a biblical
• 27:45
  pattern of using jarring language.
• 27:48
  And we established that it's all based on a normative claim, a
• 27:51
  command that we should seek our pleasure in God, not the
• 27:54
  philosophical idea that we always do anyway.
• 27:56
  And the whole thing just keeps coming back to that one central
• 27:58
  relationship. When we find our full, lasting
• 28:01
  satisfaction in God, God gets the most glory.
• 28:05
  This isn't a footnote to the Christian life.
• 28:07
  It's framed as a dangerous and necessary duty.
• 28:10
  And as we finish, it feels right to go back to that observation
• 28:13
  from Lewis. It works as both an
• 28:15
  encouragement and a serious caution.
• 28:17
  This pursuit, this Christian hedonism, is an arduous
• 28:20
  discipline. It's not for the faint of heart.
• 28:22
  No, because true God centered satisfaction requires constant
• 28:26
  work, a constant vigilant effort to redirect our elections away
• 28:30
  from lesser things and toward Him.
• 28:32
  So if the pleasure of God is the goal, the great destination, the
• 28:37
  stars in that parable, then you the listener have to consider
• 28:41
  what might be blocking your view.
• 28:43
  What are your temporal carriage lights?
• 28:45
  Those comfortable habits, the possessions, the constant
• 28:48
  busyness of life that might be so bright and so close that
• 28:51
  they're obscuring your view of the stars, your actual awareness
• 28:54
  and enjoyment of God? I'm following Louis's point.
• 28:57
  Following his point, what specific arduous discipline
• 29:00
  might you need to take up to reorient your site?
• 29:02
  You need to do to start choosing the greater eternal satisfaction
• 29:06
  over the immediate, blinding comfort.
• 29:08
  That's the real lasting challenge of the discipline of
• 29:10
  delight.