“Joy in God is the central mechanism through which human beings glorify God and thus fulfill God’s ultimate design for our lives.” I said that in last weekend’s sermon. For our midweek devotion this week I would like to expand on that thought a bit more.
Part of a being’s goodness and beauty can be known by what that being affirms as good and beautiful. Again, I am standing on Piper’s shoulders here. He quotes Henry Scougal when he said, “The worth and excellency of a soul is to be measured by the object of its love.” (Scougal, p.40) For example, we should be quick to cast doubt on a public figure who speaks in glowing terms about a known scoundrel. If a beloved celebrity came on The View and told the audience about the virtues of Hitler and her affection for his actions, there would be a gasp from the audience. The public would rightly sense something deeply wrong with this hypothetical person showing affection for someone known for such vile actions as ethnic genocide. Let’s put the same principal in positive terms. If someone of unknown quality came out in public and declared their affirmation of a new cure for cancer and affectionate feeling toward the researcher who decided to make the new cure available for free to the public, that person would gain a modicum of credibility in the eyes of the public. There is an understood moral value in affection and affirmation for what is good as well as revulsion and hatred for what is evil. Are you with me?
The next question is this. Is this precept true whether it is applied to mortal man or infinite God? Is the worth and excellency of God’s soul rightly measured by the object of His love? I submit to you that it is. Truly, when we think about God in these terms, we can see that if we hold it to be true that God is of infinite worth and the greatest good in the universe (and we should), then it follows that He would by logical necessity affirm and have affection for His own goodness and worth in infinite measure. That is, God values God above all that is not God. Then it also follows that a man’s greatest measure of morality is in his valuing God above all that is not God. I assert that this is not just good philosophy but good theology and just plain good sense. What kind of morality could we suppose that God has in himself if He valued anything that is not supremely valuable (not God) more than that which is supremely valuable(God)?
Finally, what is the emotion that we feel when we encounter that which we value, affirm, and hold great affection for in our heart? I would like to spend some time investigating how and why we arrive at this answer, but I don’t need to do that in order to arrive at the answer. Joy! Joy is what a soul feels when it encounters the object which it values most deeply, affirms most heartily, and loves with the highest affection. We feel joy when we are reunited with beloved family or friends. We feel joy when we are allowed to taste our favorite food. We feel joy when we behold in our minds our most cherished truth. Joy is the expression of our hearts in relation to our experience of truth, goodness, and beauty. This is how I arrive at this statement. Joy is the central mechanism for glorifying God because it is the expression of our heart’s valuing, affirming, and affection for God. Henry Scougal describes the Christian experience of God in this way:
“The love of God is a delightful and affectionate sense of the divine perfections, which makes the soul resign and sacrifice itself wholly unto him, desiring above all things to please him, and delighting in nothing so much as in fellowship and communion with him, and being ready to do or suffer any thing for his sake, or at his pleasure. Though this affection may have its first rise from the favors and mercies of God towards ourselves, yet doth it in its growth and progress transcend such particular considerations, and ground itself on his infinite goodness manifested in all the works of creation and providence.” (Scougal 21-22)
I pray that this kind of thinking blesses your soul as much as it does mine.
In Christ Alone,
Pastor Charles