If the way God has designed for His glory to be magnified in the world is for His people to

help Him gain, to cherish Him, and treasure Him, and be satisfied in Him, then there is no conflict

between God's being magnified in your life and you're being satisfied in life.

Does God's aim to glorify Himself, conflict with our desire to be happy? That's the question John

Piper addresses in this episode of Light and Truth. The sermon was originally preached at Wheaton

College on February 10th, 1998.

What I wanted to do yesterday was try to persuade you that missions is not the ultimate goal of

the church. Worship is and that missions exist because worship doesn't. That is the ultimate

goal of the church is to magnify God, to glorify God, to display God, to reflect back or image,

God, as those who are created in His image. I was reading recently in Acts chapter 18 in my

devotions and saw at least it stood out for the first time in verse 13 where Paul before

Gallio is accused of this man persuades people to worship God. Those are the exact words.

This man persuades people to worship God contrary to our laws. What a great self-understanding

for a missionary. This person persuades people to worship God. So the persuading and the going

are penultimate and the worshiping God is ultimate. So the main thing about the church is not

missions. The main thing about the church is worship and gathering people from all the tribes

and tongues and nations into a worshiping community. When you realize that, that missions is not the

main thing, it brings power and clarity and fire to missions because now we know at the point

and the thrust and the dynamic of it all really is. But the way I went about it yesterday was by

highlighting the fact that God is the great God magnifier. God is uppermost in God's affections.

God is the most God-centered person in the world in predestination and creation and incarnation

and crucifixion and sanctification and consummation. He's doing everything he does to magnify

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