Latest / Pastor John Piper's answers / Enjoying God in His Gifts

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Enjoying God in His Gifts · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Welcome back to the podcast. In our Bible reading this week, we hit
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  Psalm forty three, and within Psalm forty three we find one amazing little verse
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  that unfolds into all sorts of implications, leading to a wonderful question from a
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  pastor named Robert who lives and ministers in Wisconsin. Hello, Pastor John,
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  I thank you for the way you have served and encourage pastors like me from
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  a distance over the decades through your faithful labors. I love Psalm forty three
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  four, a life verse for me and one I want to better understand.
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  I know you love this text as well. Here it is, then I
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  will go to the altar of God to God my exceeding joy. If I
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  remember correctly somewhere I heard you translate the Hebrew of this text like this quote,
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  then I will go to the altar of God to God the joy of
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  my joys. God is the joy of our joys. I can't find where
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  you said this, but you're not the only one, as I have come
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  to see this. Another ins of this verse from Pureitan Thomas Goodwin in the
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  seventeenth century to William de Burgh in the nineteenth to Classic Hebrew scholars today so
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  can you walk us through the Hebrew briefly and then explain what this means that
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  God is the joy of our joys. I've historically thought of this text saying
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  what the ESV here implies that God is the most exceeding joy above all other
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  joys a comparison. But you seem to indicate that this text is speaking of
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  source, that God is the joy that is the giver of all other joys.
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  That changes the text completely. If so, expand on this this seems
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  like a huge discovery. Well, that's not quite what I mean. Let
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  me, I totally love what he loves here and want to get at it
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  because there is something really quite right. I don't mean source when I say
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  joy of our joys. What I mean is God is the essence of our
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  joys. God is the substance of all our joys. He's the best part
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  of every joy if we are enjoying things rightly. So he's not only supreme
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  joy, which is what the ESV brings out our exceeding joy, but he
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  is also the best part of all other joys. He is to be what
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  makes all our joys most enjoyable. That's what I mean. Now, let's
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  see if that's so, and get the verse in front of us here.
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  So I'm forty three, let's read verse three and four. So the Psalmist
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  is crying out to God, and he says, send your light and your
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  truth. Let them lead me. Let them bring me to your holy hill
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  and to your dwelling. Then I will go to the altar of God,
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  to God my ex eating joy. So that's the verse. So the Psalmist
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  identifies God as his exceeding joy, which the ESV, the NASB, the
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  King James version all translate exceeding joy the Hebrew simhat gi lee sim hot gi
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  lee, two different words for joy or happiness or pleasure. Literally, then
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  could be translated the joy of my gladness, which in fact is exactly what's
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  in the margin of the old King James, the joy of my gladness.
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  So the question is what is that literal phrase, the joy of my gladness
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  mean? The ESV and the other versions take it to mean that at least
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  it means he's my best gladness. The joy of my gladness means of all
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  my gladness, he's the best, And surely that's right. I mean,
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  at least it means that God is supreme. God never made anything more valuable
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  or more enjoyable than himself. So yes, God is our exceeding joy.
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  That's what it means to be God, I think, and that's what it
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  means to love God. But the question remains is that all the phrase means
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  is there more implied in the phrase joy of my gladness. So we're back.
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  So I'm guiding our friend to where I actually said that. So he
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  said he couldn't find it. Well, February twenty six, two thousand and
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  six. It's on the DG website on this text. I preached on this,
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  and I remember it so clearly because it was twelve days after my prostate
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  cancer surgery. I chose this text precisely for that. So way back February
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  twenty six, two thousand and six, I preached on this, and here's
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  what I argue. I'll quote two sentences, God, who in all my
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  rejoicing over all the good things that He had made, is Himself in all
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  my rejoicing, the heart of my joy, the gladness of my joy.
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  Every joy that does not have God as the central gladness of the joy is
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  a hollow joy. And in the end will burst like a bubble. End
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  quote from the sermon. Now, the reason that insight is so important is
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  because without it all our enjoyment of God's gifts, the things that He's made,
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  would not honor God the way that enjoyment should. Or to put it
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  in the form of a question, what keeps our enjoyment of pizza or friendship
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  from being idolatry? That's the question now you could answer because we always enjoy
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  God more than pizza, and we always enjoy God more than friendship, and
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  that keeps it from being idolatry. And that's true, and that's crucial.
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  God is our exceeding joy, supreme joy. But I think God intends to
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  be glorified not only by being enjoyed more than pizza and more than friendship,
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  but by being enjoyed in the very enjoyment of pizza and in the very enjoyment
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  of friendship. I think God intends for us to enjoy his sweetness in the
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  sweetness of chocolate, his saltiness in the saltiness of French fries, his juiciness
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  in the juiciness of a sizzling steak, his friendship in the company of our
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  friends, his brightness in the sunrising and so on. When Paul says in
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  One Timothy six seventeen, set your hope on God, who richly provides us
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  with everything to enjoy, I don't think he meant only make sure you enjoy
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  God more than everything he made, but rather make sure you enjoy God in
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  everything he made, under everything as the source of joy, over everything as
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  superior joy, and in everything as the best part of the enjoyment of everything.
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  Now you could also say that, and this is true. Thankfulness for
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  God's gifts is another key to keep the enjoyment of God's gifts from becoming God
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  keep ourselves from becoming idolaters. To be consciously thankful that every legitimate pleasure in
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  this life is a gift of God, is a good thing, that's a
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  right thing. By all means we should be thankful. It's a sin to
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  be ungrateful for every good thing God gifts. God gifts, So Paul said
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  in One Timothy four, verse four. Nothing is to be rejected if it
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  is received with thanksgiving. But here's the issue I want to push into.
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  This thankfulness is not enough to keep the enjoyment of God's gifts from becoming idolatrous.
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  Think with me about this. Why is that? Why is thankfulness not
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  enough to keep God's good gifts from being idols to us? It's because we
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  all know that someone may give us a gift we enjoy more than we enjoy
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  the person who gave it. We know this. Being thankful to God or
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  anyone does not mean we love the giver more than the gift. It doesn't.
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  A cranky, mean spirited old man may give you the gift you've wanted
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  all your life, and you're thankful, Yes you are, but you don't
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  like him be cranky. He's a mean spirited old man. You're not sure
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  why he gave it to you, but he gave it to you, and
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  you've wanted it all your lives, so you're thankful for it. If we're
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  going to glorify God in the enjoyment of his gifts, we have to go
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  beyond thankfulness. So back to Psal forty three, verse four. God is
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  the joy of my gladness means not only that he is better than the gladness
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  I have in other things that is my exceeding joy, but that he is
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  the best part of the gladness I have in other things. Is the joy
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  of my gladness. He is what makes the enjoyment of those other things more
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  enjoyable. When the Psalma says in Psalm seventy three, verse twenty five,
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  whom have I in heaven but You? And there is nothing on earth I
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  desire besides you. Wow, what a statement he might mean. I desire
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  nothing above God. Mean that sounds like he means I don't desire anything on
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  earth of which God is not the chief part. I don't want to enjoy
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  anything he's saying which is not also an enjoyment of God. I want to
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  enjoy God in friendship. I want to enjoy God in eating. I want
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  to enjoy God in the pleasures of the marriage bed. I want to enjoy
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  God in music and reading and rising early to see the dawn. Now,
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  if we're onto something here, let's see what some other significant Christian thinkers have
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  said about this. Here's the way Thomas Trarharne put it. You never enjoy
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  the world aright till you see how a grain of sand exhibits the wisdom and
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  power of God and prize in everything the service which they do you by manifesting
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  His glory and goodness to your soul. Now, that's not mere thankfulness.
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  This is enjoying God in our enjoyment of what He has made. Every part
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  of creation is designed by God to communicate something of God, and when we
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  enjoy that part of creation, we are to savor God in it. Here's
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  the way Augustine put it in his prayer. He loves THEE too little?
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  Speaking to God, he loves THEE too little? Who loves anything together with
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  Thee which he loves not for thy sake? Now for thy sake I take
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  to mean we love what is not God properly by loving it for what we
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  taste of God in it, not just out of thankfulness, but what we
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  taste and see, smell, feel of God in it. So let us
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  go with the Psalmist to the altar of God, that is, to the
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  cross of Jesus Christ, and enjoy the forgiveness of sins that He purchased there.
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  And through that gift, let us know and enjoy God as our exceeding
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  joy. Yes, and as the gladness of all our joys. Yeah,
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  profound, Thank you, best John. This episode on Psalm forty three to
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  four is a big addition to an ongoing conversation that we've had over the years,
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  questions every listener will wrestle with at some point to avoid idolatry. Questions
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  like do I love the Giver more than the gifts to me? And how
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  do I love the Giver in his gifts to me? Those are profound questions
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  that get asked in a lot of different ways. And if that's something you
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  want more help on, I just wrote a book that takes all of our
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  episodes on these themes, and I wrote a digest of them in a new
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  book titled Ask Pastor John's seven hundred and fifty Bible Answers to Life's most Important
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  Questions. See pages ninety five to ninety eight for that digest for these questions
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  about the Giver and his gifts in a new book we're going to talk about
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  soon in early March is when it releases. Thank you, Pastor John for
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  this episode and thanks for joining us today. If you have a question you
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  want to ask Pastor John, email it to ask Questor John at Desiring Good
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  dot org. And again, if you're reading your Bible with us, we
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  are in Leviticus in the thick of it, raising an important question about the
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  disabled in the Old Testament. Why did God shun them? Your host Tony
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  Ranky. It's important question and it's up next on Thirsday. See then,