Kennystix's podcast
Delighting in God as the Fountain of Love
The following message is by Pastor John Piper. More information from Desiring God is available at www.desiringgod.org. Father in Heaven, I'm thankful for my brothers and sisters here, and I pray that you would come and grant me and them strength to listen, to speak, and faithfulness to your Word. Your Word is a sword that penetrates to the division of soul and spirit, bone, and marrow and reveals the secret things of the heart. And so help me to stay close to your Word, and so you do your work now to awaken a kind of love that is rooted in joy, and that both magnifies you and meets the needs of other people by helping them to magnify you. I pray this in Jesus' name, Amen. So I said I left out the seventh argument from my eight that I was giving you as to why we should pursue our joy in God all the time. And now I want to talk about that seventh argument. And the argument was that if you don't find your joy in God, pursue your joy in God, seek to maximize your joy in God, you won't love other people. You won't be able to love other people. So let's go to 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 8. And I find here in the first four verses of 2 Corinthians 8, a definition of love that makes joy essential to it. What Paul is doing in verse 8 and 9 of 2 Corinthians is seeking to motivate the Corinthians to give generously to the collection that he's taking for the saints in Jerusalem who are poor. So he's trying to motivate generosity. He's trying to motivate love, practical, sacrificial love in the form of money being given by the saints in Corinth, and the way he does it is by pointing to the way the Macedonians, that's the Christians who lived up near Thessalonica and Philippi, the Macedonians have already been generous. So what we have here is a description of how generosity was produced in the Macedonian church. So if you pastors like me want to produce a generous church, not just so that we can pay our bills, but so that they are overflowing in love to the community and reaching out and meeting needs and denying themselves and sacrificing so that other people can be helped and their suffering can be minimized, listen carefully. We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia. So the first thing to observe is that the grace of God arrived in Macedonia. It was shown. It came down. Something amazing happened. The grace of God worked in Macedonia. Verse 2, "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. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means of their own free will, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints." So what happened when grace was shown in verse 1 was not that afflictions went away, afflictions increased and poverty didn't go away, it had afflictions added to it. You see that in verse 2, "In a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part." Now let's get the picture. Paul arrives in Macedonia, Philippi, Thessalonica, and he preaches the gospel. Lydia gets saved, the jailer gets saved, and a church is born, and over time, great grace is manifested in the Macedonian church. And the effect of this is that many of the people while they were in poverty have affliction added to it, because now they're Christians and they're being persecuted. So you've got poverty with affliction added on top of it. And in spite of poverty and in spite of affliction, verse 2 says, "There was abundance of joy." See that? Abundance of joy. Don't ever teach your people that the gospel arrives and first it takes away poverty and then it takes away affliction so that joy can happen. Let's know what happens. In the early church, there was much poverty, there was much added affliction, and in spite of it, there was abundance of joy. Why? Because the joy was in the grace that was coming down not in the relief that was happening and their circumstances. This was joy in God. This was joy in hope. This was joy in the gospel, joy in Jesus, joy in a new fellowship, and what did it produce? In a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. They gave and they gave and they gave. In fact, verse 4 stretches us to the breaking point in believing what happened there. As verse 4 says, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints. Paul was probably saying to them, "You've given enough, you are poor and you're under affliction, that's enough." And they said, "Please, please take another offering from us." That's what happened. That's what happened. Where did it come from? Where did that come from? It came from joy. The abundance of joy in spite of persecution, in spite of poverty was overflowing in, please, take our money. We don't have much, but take what we have to the poor in Jerusalem. That's what the grace of God had done in their lives. The reason I call this love is because of verse 8. I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others, namely the ones I've just described in Macedonia, I say this to you Corinthians, to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine, like theirs was. So once I see the word love in verse 8, and it says, "I want your love, Corinthians also, like the Macedonians, to be genuine." And I know what he's talking about in verses 1 to 3 is love. So how would you then, if I gave you a quiz right now, and the quiz said, "Define love in terms of its origin in verses 1 to 3 of 2 Corinthians 8." What would be your one sentence definition of love, I wonder. I'll give you mine. Love is the grace enabled, that's a hyphenated word, grace which is enabled, I mean love, which is enabled by grace, the grace enabled impulse to expand your joy in God by extending it to others in practical ways. The grace enabled impulse to expand your joy in God to others in practical ways of kindness and generosity. Here's a simpler way to say it, love is the overflow of joy in God that meets the needs of others. Love is the overflow of joy in God that meets the needs of others. Now if you accept that definition on the basis of those verses, you've already agreed with my argument number seven. If that's where love comes from, and you say to me, "I will not pursue that joy. I will not make that joy a priority in my life," you have just cut the nerve of love. If you say that joy doesn't matter, you're saying the overflow of it doesn't matter. And there are so many people who try to define love so that it does not require joy in God. And there's a reason for that. Reason is that they want love to be more in their control. Joy doesn't seem to be in our control. It kind of goes and comes and rises and falls and love. We've got to control that because we're commanded to do that. So it's got to be defined in terms of decisions. I had a teacher in college, Millard Erickson, who's written a big book, Christian Theology, lots of other books. And he taught me a class on apologetics. And I remember in 1967, reading, we read lots of bad books to learn from him how to respond to bad books. One of the bad books we read was Situation Ethics by Joseph Fletcher, was not a good book. And he took the role of Joseph Fletcher in the class, and we had to interact and try to show why it wasn't biblical, it wasn't right. That's the way he taught us, it was very helpful. Reading Joseph Fletcher, what was I, 21 years old? I didn't know much, but I had grown up in a home saturated with the Bible. I wasn't theological. I didn't think in theological categories. I just had a lot of Bible in my head, which is a wonderful way to grow up. And so I'm sitting there and I'm reading Joseph Fletcher. I read it all the way through it and making comments. And here was one of Joseph Fletcher's arguments about love. He said love has to be defined in terms of actions, not emotions, because love is commanded in the Bible and you can't command the emotions, but you can command actions. And that was his argument. And all of us, 21 year olds, we're kind of impressed with that argument. Wow, that's right. Emotions, they come, they go, you can't control the emotions very well, but you sure should be able to control love, and so he must be right. And I remember looking at and thinking, there's something fishy about this. There's something that's not right about this, and I couldn't put my finger on what's not right about this, but this is the value of growing up in a home where you're just full of Bible. Your intuitions are better than your head sometimes. You can't quite name the problem, but your intuitions are so biblically informed, something's wrong here. And I knew something is wrong with that argument. And now I know what's wrong with it. What's wrong with it is that one of the premises is false. His argument went like this, love is commanded. You can't command the emotions, therefore love must be an action, not a emotion. The second premise is false. And the reason I felt it was false, namely that you can't command the emotions, the reason I felt that it was false was because in my head, deep down in my subconscious, or all these memories of Bible verses where emotions are commanded, I'll just list a few, gratitude is commanded. Now you know that that's an emotion, don't you, if your ten-year-old son gets a Christmas present, a box about this big and he opens it and it's a pair of black socks, stockings, he will not feel the emotion of gratitude, but you can tell him, say thank you to your grandmother, say thank you, and he can say thank you grandmother for my socks. Now that's very different than gratitude, that's obedience to mother. Gratitude is something that rises spontaneously in the heart when you get a red fire truck or whatever you wanted. Gratitude is commanded in the Bible. Be thankful in all things, even though it's an emotion, you cannot control. Either it's there or it's not there and you can't make it be there and it's commanded to be there when God gives you good things. Or hope is commanded, hopefully in the grace that is coming to you, 1 Corinthians 1, 13, and hope is an emotion. Joy is commanded, we just saw that in the previous session, and joy is an emotion. Sorrow is commanded, weep with those who weep, that is not a command to be a hypocrite. That's a command to feel compassion when people are hurting and you can't make yourself feel compassion. If you're not a compassionate person, you can't obey that command, you sin. Or fear, we are commanded to fear in Romans 11, 17, or we are commanded to have contentment. Hebrews 13, be content with what you have. If you're not content, you can't make yourself be content by snapping your finger or they go on and on. So premise number two in Fletcher's argument is false. The premise was you can't command the emotions. Here's the reason God has the right to command the emotions. God can command that anything exists which ought to exist. God is just and God is right to command that anything happened that ought to happen. And we ought to be grateful and we ought to have hope and we ought to rejoice and we ought to sorrow with those who sorrow and we ought to have compassion and we ought to fear and we ought to be content with what we have. And if we don't, we're sinning. Sin is the absence of proper emotions and the actions that flow from them. So many churches completely de-emotionalize the Christian life. They just strip the emotions out of the Christian life to make it manageable. You know where this comes from? Let's get theological for a minute. Let's get controversial for a minute. It comes from Arminianism. A Calvinist at his very soul believes that God requires of us what we cannot produce. Faith. And we can't produce it because we're dead. We are dead in trespasses and sins according to Ephesians 2.5. But God who is rich in mercy out of the great love with which he loved us made us alive together with Christ and the first little cry of that newborn baby is I believe you. We don't do the I believe you and then get made alive. Dead people don't do anything. So Calvinists have no problem with this. Calvinists can take the Bible as it stands with all of its mystery and embrace it. Whereas the person, the Arminian comes with this impulse, "God can't require of me what I can't produce." That's unjust. God can't require of me what I can't produce. Well that's false. And so Arminianism functions to strip the Christian life of anything you can't produce. And it turns the Christian life into a willpower religion. Now I've got my free will and what I can do I'm responsible to do and I can do it. Just tell me to do it God and I'm responsible to do it and I can do it. If that's what you turn the Christian life into this book is going to be ripped to shreds. This book is so full of commands of things you can't do you will not be able to make any sense out of this book. So I hope that you will abandon that impulse and go to God and say everything worthwhile that you require of me I cannot perform. Command what you will and grant what you command. I mean Jesus said John 15-5, "Without me you can do nothing." It's like a branch and a vine. You pull it out, no fruit. You put it in, sap will flow, fruit will be produced. We can't do the emotions we're required to do without Him. So Fletcher is wrong because his premise is wrong and therefore love, now let's be careful here because you thought I was going to argue that love is an emotion well it's not that simple is it. Love is clearly more than an emotion. The Bible talks about deeds which are love. God makes the sun rise on the just and the unjust and He makes the rain fall on the good and the evil be like your father and love your enemy. So love is practical deeds of helpfulness. Needs deeds, James and John get upset with professing Christians who see needs and just say be blessed, be filled, go your way and don't do anything, don't do anything. So love clearly includes do something to help people. If they're hungry, feed them. If they're thirsty, give them something to drink. If they don't have clothes, clothe them. If they don't have homes, house them. If they're in prison, visit them. If they're so journers, fold your arms and get them into your community, do something. The problem I have is there are so many people who want to say yes and the doing is all that love is, just the doing. You know the biblical problem with that? This Corinthians 13-3, that's the great love chapter, verse 3 goes like this, "If I give away all I have and if I deliver my body to be burned but have not love, I am nothing." You mean, I can give all my money away to the needy and I can give my body to be burned and not be a loving person, yes that's what it says. So love cannot be defined in terms of mere deeds. I mean they don't get any better than that, giving all your money away and laying your life down, that's the best deed you can do for somebody. So if you can do that and not be a loving person, you cannot define love in terms of mere, mere, mere deeds. You must add something to it and I'm getting the something from 2 Corinthians 8-2. You see where I'm going, I'm getting the something from 2 Corinthians 8 verse 2. What is the something that's missing when you just do deeds, joy in God as the overflow? So if you just cut that out, just cut all that out and say, nope, you don't have to know God, you don't have to love God, you don't have to delight in God, you don't have to have any overflow of joy in Him, you just need the deeds and then you're a loving person. I would say well, this text says in 1 Corinthians 13-3, there are going to be a lot of people in hell who loved like that, a lot of people. God didn't count, delighting in Him didn't count, just horizontal social ethics is what counted, atheism in the form of good deeds. So I'm not going to go there, I'm not going to preach that, I do not want to join ranks with the liberals in my city who deny the deity of Christ, deny the authority of Scripture, deny the resurrection and are always constantly talking about social ethics. In the name of love, and they're the ones that get in the newspaper because their theology is totally believable by unbelievers. I'm just not going to go there, I'm not interested in being that kind of a person because those guys are helping people perish, they're helping people die in the name of homes for the homeless, in the name of special kinds of need meeting for people on drugs and so on. Now here's the deal with regard to social ethics. We evangelicals better do better than they, not worse. If love is not mere deeds, but rather deeds from the overflow of joy in God, why should ours be any less? And one of the sad things over the last 50, 60 years is that as evangelicals, well actually it's from the earlier part of the 20th century in our land anyway, where the evangelicals looked at the social gospel and the liberals who were pursuing it, who didn't believe in the gospel of Christ crucified and risen, and they shrunk back from the social engagement because they didn't want to identify with the liberal theology. What a sad thing. Isn't that sad? I think that's sad. Rather, why shouldn't we be the ones who want to alleviate as much suffering as possible? And you know what I say, here's the way I try to. I've got people in my church who are gung-ho evangelists going out on Tuesday night, cold, turkey, getting people's face, talking about Jesus, trying to get them saved, and then I've got these people over here who think that is totally non-relational and unhelpful, and they want to have relationships and get into their lives, meet their needs, relieve their suffering, and eventually get to the gospel and share it. And what I say, as I stand up, I love both these groups. I really do. I love what these folks are doing on Tuesday night, and I love this relational orientation over here. I think those are two great ways to do evangelism. But the way I put it is I say, don't we all agree that the calling of the Christian in a world of pain is to relieve as much suffering as we can, especially eternal suffering. That tends to pull them together, because if you really do want to relieve people of eternal suffering and you have a good heart about that, you will probably want to minimize, if you can, their present suffering. And if you really care about people who have present suffering and you are indifferent to whether they suffer eternally, you don't really care about them. So I'm pushing these people together to say love cares about all suffering relief, because Jesus said, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and is there anybody in this room who when you get a very severe pain, hip, heart, chest, head, migraine, a very severe pain that if you knew somebody could help you feel relief and they didn't do it, how would you feel about them? You wouldn't call that love because you want relief, you want relief. Who doesn't want relief? And if it's in our power to help bring relief, what a beautiful statement about God's compassion. All that on 2 Corinthians 8, 1 to 4. Let me take you further down into chapter 9. Now this is a very familiar verse, chapter 9 verse 7. Each one must give. He's still on the Corinthians to motivate them to give to the poor in Jerusalem. Each one must give as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion for God loves a cheerful giver. God loves a cheerful giver. So how does he feel about givers who aren't cheerful? He doesn't say, but doesn't sound good. God loves a cheerful giver. Now here's the way I put it. If somebody says the giving of love is the simple, disciplined, sacrificial, risk-taking, doing of good for another by helping them, that's the giving that God requires. And the cheer, the cheer or the joy doesn't matter. A person who says that is, in my judgment, saying this verse is hogwash. This verse is unimportant, this verse is false, this verse shouldn't be in the Bible, and God really doesn't mean what he says here. What this verse says is what God loves to see, loves to see, loves to see is people who do that sacrificial giving joyfully, which means chapter 8, verse 2, was not taken out of context, he is still on this issue of joy. Love is the overflow of joy which meets the needs of others, joy in God. Love is the overflow of joy in God that meets the needs of others. That's what verse 7 says, God loves a cheerful giver, he doesn't just love givers. I don't want people to give if they don't delight in God. That's not what worship is for, I'm not into building and running a church on hypocritical gifts, or carnal gifts, or unbelieving gifts, keep your money. That's what I want to say, rather I want to preach in such a way, live in such a way, lead in such a way that this church so enjoys God that when they write the check for the poor or for the budget, they write it gladly. That would be obedience. Let's go to 1 Peter chapter 5, 1 Peter. This is a special word now, these next two texts, special word for pastors. I'm still arguing that you can't be a loving person if you forsake or try to forsake the pursuit of your own joy in God. If you say that the pursuit of joy in God is neither here nor there, it's just icing on the cake, it doesn't have any essential bearing on my life of love. I'm saying you will not become a loving person. That's my argument. Here's another support for pastors, 1 Peter chapter 5 verse 2, shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly as God would have you, not for shameful gain, but eagerly. Now pastors, is that not a restatement of 2 Corinthians 9-7 applied to pastoral ministry? 2 Corinthians 9-7 said, God loves a cheerful giver, do not give under constraint or reluctantly. Cheerfully give, here he says pastors, exercise oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly not for shameful gain, don't do it just to make a living, but eagerly. Now take that word eagerly, isn't that? I mean, can you be eager in the ministry and not joyful in the ministry? Paraphrase, God loves a cheerful pastor. I think that's exactly what verse 2 is saying. Now I'll tell you why that is essential to love from Hebrews, let's go to Hebrews. Hebrews, James, verse 2 Peter, Hebrews 13, this to me has proved in 26 years to be one of the most powerful pastoral exhortations in my life because here's the question it answers. Does a pastor have to pursue his joy in order to be a loving shepherd? And the answer is a resounding yes, let's read it, see if you see that. Hebrews 13, verse 17, obey your leaders, now that's talking to the people in the congregation about their elders, obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy. Let the pastors do this oversight with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. Now think backward through this text, that would be of no advantage to you. So the issue is what will be an advantage to the people, that's love. As a pastor I want to be an advantage to my people. I want to bless them and help them and live and preach and lead in such a way that they get help from me. I don't want to be a disadvantage to my people, I want to be an advantage to my people. Well this verse says something will be of no advantage to them. What is it? If I don't do my work with joy but do it with groaning I will be of no advantage to them. Are you with me? Let them do this with joy, not with groaning because if you switch it around and do it with groaning and no joy that will be of no advantage to them. Now do you see the implication? If you would love your people, if you would be an advantage to them you must pursue your joy in ministry. This verse says if you don't pursue your joy in ministry you don't pursue the advantage of your people. Now you know this is true if you just are honest and think about all the sick churches that you know that have sick pastors. What produces sick churches? Well there are many things and I don't want to blame the pastor for everything, not by a long shot. But many sick churches are produced by pastors who don't understand this verse. And their whole ministry is the way I make my living or I'm under constraint because God making me do this or I can't do anything else but this or I hate this work but my kids are in school here or whatever. They're not being driven by I love God and His work. I love this, even the pain of it, even the late nights of it, even the hospital calls, even the breaking marriages, I love to be here doing this work. This is my joy under God. I'll tell you a pastor that feels that way will probably not have a sick church. Something will be happening, something will be happening and advantage will come to the people. They will feel something and you know what they'll feel? The truth of the gospel, the truth of the gospel will be embodied by their pastor. Pastors who do not delight in God and the overflow into the good of the people are a living contradiction of the gospel. They are saying Sunday after Sunday, why would you come here? I find this boring, why don't you? I wish I weren't in this job, why would you want to be in this church? I mean that comes through, it just comes through. I've been to churches where you just wonder why does anybody come here. This looks like this man does not at all want to be here. That's very sad. I hope you see that in verse 17, let them do this with joy. Now I admit this is talking to the congregation and how the congregation can help their pastor do that with joy. So all you who are not pastors, you read that for yourself. But the implication for pastors is if you've grown in the ministry all the time, if this is just one mega burden that I can hardly stand, then probably you should do your people a favor and either have a revolution in your experience or do another kind of work. Maybe one last verse before I stop. Let's go to Acts chapter 20. Acts chapter 20, there are only two or three sayings of Jesus outside the Gospels. This is one of them. Chapter 20 verse 35, Paul is talking to the elders from Ephesus saying goodbye to them, giving them final exhortations and listen to the way he exhorts them in verse 35. In all things, I have shown you that by working hard in this way, we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said it is more blessed to give than to receive. It is more blessed to give than to receive. You get more blessing when you give than when you receive. You get more deep spiritual satisfaction in God when you give than when you receive. This is an argument for being a generous person because you want to be more happy. Here is the sealer of this verse. What is the real offensive word in verse 35? Before I tell you what I think the real offensive word is, let me put a setting here. 32 years ago, I was in Germany and all I was doing for three years was reading my Bible and reading high technical scholarly literature about love because my doctoral dissertation was called "Love Your Enemies, Jesus' Love Command in the Synoptic Gospels in Early Christian Ethical Teaching." That was the title of my dissertation. So day after day after day, all I did was read articles and books about how love looked and how it was motivated in the first century and in Bible. You know what I found, ethical teacher after ethical teacher argued that if you do an act of kindness for the benefit you get from it, you ruin it ethically and turn it into selfishness. Love may not be motivated by any desire for reward. If you desire reward, you are not loving people, you're just loving you. That is all over the literature. And here I am 15-year-old at the time I was 26 or 7. But I'm back at my mother's knee thinking, "That doesn't smell right. That doesn't smell right to this 15-year-old Bible-saturated boy." Some's wrong with that. What's wrong with it is that Jesus motivates love with rewards everywhere, like here. You know, the most controversial word in verse 35 is the word "remember." Let's read it again. In all these things I have shown you that by working hard in this way, we must help the week remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He Himself said, "You get more blessing when you love and give than when you just try to use other people for your own benefits. You get blessing when you love people. Remember, remember that." Now you know what all these ethical teachers would have to say? Forget that. Forget that. Forget that. It's a harmful information that is going to ruin your motives. Get that out of your head because they all said, "Of course reward comes when you love." Of course reward comes when you love, but you can't do it for that reason. Keep that out of your head. Don't let that be part of your motivation. Get it out of your head that reward will come from this act of kindness. Get that out of your head. Jesus says, "Keep it in your head. Keep it in your head. Keep it in your head." Actually, Paul says, "Keep it in your head." Paul says, "Keep it in your head. Keep it in your head." Why? Because here I am at 8.30 or 8 o'clock on a Tuesday night at home settling in for a minute for, let's just make it Monday night. That's my night off. We'll make it really bad. So I'm going to fly away from here having spoken nine times with six Q&As and I'm going to go home on Sunday afternoon and I'm going to put my feet up, okay, and the phone rings. I'm a pastor. That's my job. Phone is my job. The phone rings and it's just settling in, reacquainted with my wife, got a good book in my hand, and there's a crisis somewhere. And almost everything in me says, "I don't want to do this." That's not the most loving response. I don't want to do this. I want to rest and evidently the call came to me because others are not available. And so I say, "Okay, where's it? Okay, regions." Yeah, I know. Yeah, I know where it is. Thank you. I'll be right there. Look at my wife, say, and go to the emergency room over at Regions Hospital. I'll see you in a little bit. No one else is great about this. She never gets upset. I get upset. So I'm in the car. It takes about nine miles over there to Regions Hospital. Now what should I do in the car? Yeah. What should I do with this verse? Forget it or remember it. You bet I should remember it. Come on now. Lord, please help me to remember that if I really reach out, care, love, feel some sense of affection and compassion here, blessing is going to be all over me and my marriage in this. It's going to come home so full of God, so full of joy, so full of you. Please, don't let me forget that it's a blessed thing to serve other people. It's a blessed thing to pour your life out when you're tired. This is the way Jesus lived all his life. He was just always exhausted because he loved other people so much. Now one last thing before I stop. Somebody could legitimately ask, "Well now, I'm going to get to the street. Why isn't it selfish to think that way? I mean, why aren't you just using the person in the emergency room to make you happy if that's the way you're thinking? And the reason is this. The reason is this. The joy that I want to maximize in going there is a joy that will be maximized if I can include them in it. I want to sow no God in these nine miles. I want something spiritually to happen to me as a pastor so that there begins to well up inside of me, like in chapter 8 verse 2 of 2 Corinthians, abundance of joy, ready to overflow and the overflow was intended to draw them into it. Here's a person, I just made this up, so I don't know what's wrong with them. She's a heart attack and the wife is there and she's scared of death. He's 42 year old man, just keel over and she doesn't know if he's going to come out of it. He's got three kids and she's there and her faith is wobbling and what's my goal there? What's my goal there? My goal is to spill over with the all-sufficiency of God who's meeting my tired bone need right now and to spill over under her, to lift her up, put a rock under her feet, give her something to stand on with the word of God and get her with me under this waterfall of grace which will make my joy bigger, her joy bigger and maybe in that faith we just might pray him through this. So it isn't selfish, it isn't selfish, it is hedonistic. I want my joy to be bigger and if I were to stay at home and say to hell with the folks at Regent's Hospital my joy would go down. My comfort would go up, my comfort would go up and my joy would go down. So I'm dragging myself into the car, I'm remembering, remembering, remembering, it is more blessed, more blessed, more blessed, I'm out for blessing tonight Lord, oh fill me up, I pray so that I can not use this person, not use them but include them, so all that to argue point number seven that if you say joy doesn't matter you won't be a loving person, let's pray. Here in heaven I pray that this assembly of churches in Quebec would be known as the most loving group of Christians in the whole province, that they would be known, oh God is the people who delight in you, embrace whatever pain and suffering is required, love to spill over onto believer and unbeliever alike and therefore display your all sufficiency and your value, to work that miracle in me, more and more and in them I pray in Jesus name, amen. Thank you for listening to this message by John Piper, pastor for preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Feel free to make copies of this message to give to others but please do not charge for those copies or alter the content in any way without permission. We invite you to visit desiring God online at www.desiringGod.org. There you'll find hundreds of sermons, articles, radio broadcasts and much more all available to you at no charge. Our online store carries all of Pastor John's books, audio and video resources, you can also stay up to date on what's new at desiring God. Then our website is www.desiringGod.org or call us toll free at 1-888-346-4700. Our mailing address is Desiring God-2601 East Franklin Avenue, Minneapolis, Minnesota-55-406. Remembering God exists to help you make God your treasure because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Love is the overflow of joy in God that meets the needs of others; therefore, pursuing joy in God is not optional for the sake of genuine love.