I want to talk about Christian Hedonism now because my goal to have you desire and pursue a

God-centered ministry and a God-centered life because God is God-centered is not going to happen unless I can persuade you and the

Holy Spirit can work in you the convictions of a Christian hedonist.

My phrase, and I don't care whether you like it or buy it.

You can throw it out, but I need a place to hang these thoughts that I've been thinking

for 30 years or so, and I hang it on the phrase Christian Hedonism,

H-E-D-O-N-I-S-M, not H-E-A-T-H-E-N-I-S-M.

Hedonism, which means in my Webster's dictionary a life devoted to pleasure. That's exactly what I mean by it. So I'm not playing

games with the with the word. I mean what I say in a most radical ultimate way.

I think you should develop in yourself and pursue pursuing your people a life devoted to the deepest and lasting pleasure possible. And never relent from that pursuit.

Because if you do, you will not be able to love people or worship God. The essence of worship is delighting in God and the essence

of loving people is delighting God so much you're willing to lay down your life for them that they might delight in God.

And if you don't care about delighting in God, you don't care about God, and you don't care about...

And therefore to be indifferent to the pursuit of your joy is sin.

And so I care a lot.

This is not a game to me. This is not a language event. This is reality.

And I want to try to persuade you, biblically, that the only way to be God centered is to be radically

devoted to the pursuit of your joy in God. Now here's the sentence that makes the connection. The connection is in the sentence that you heard last night, God is most glorified in you when you are most

satisfied in him. That's my key sentence. That's why desiring God exists. The ministry exists, my life exists, because God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him.

I said last night that I was going to answer today the question, how a God-centered God is a loving God.

When the Bible says, love seeks not its own.

And I argued for 60 minutes last night, God spends all of his time seeking his own glory.

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