October 12, 2012

The Christian’s Pursuit of Happiness

by Mike Riccardi

Augustine 2Augustine understood Scripture’s presentation of God as One so glorious that to experience Him is to enjoy Him. As he said in his classic quote that I cited at the end of my last post, God Himself is the believer’s joy. Now, no one will dispute that it is the Christian’s duty to pursue God and be devoted to glorifying Him in all we do. But because God Himself is our joy—because our joy is sought and found in God Himself—it is also the Christian’s duty to pursue his own greatest happiness. Augustine goes so far as to define a Christian as one who relentlessly pursues the joyful blessings of God’s promises:

He who does not think of the world to come, he who is a Christian for any other reason than that he may receive God’s ultimate promises, is not yet a Christian. (Quoted in Chadwick, Augustine: A Very Short Introduction, 59.)

And what is God’s ultimate promise? None other than the gift of Himself. His promise is that all who trust in Christ for righteousness will have God for their God (1 Pet 3:18), and that He will dwell among them and that they will be His people (Rev 22:3–4). According to Augustine, following the Word of God, the definition of being a Christian is to shape your entire life around pursuing your greatest benefit—your greatest joy, your greatest happiness—in Christ.

We are all pursuing satisfaction. All of us are hardwired to engage in the pursuit of happiness. The question is: In what, precisely, are you pursuing it? Are you doing your delightful duty of pursuing your greatest happiness? Or are you content to settle for lesser pleasures that can never truly satisfy you?

“Jesus answered and said to her,
‘Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again;
but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst;
but the water that I will give him
will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.’”
- John 4:13-14 -

“Now on the last day, the great day of the feast,
Jesus stood and cried out, saying,
‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.’”
- John 7:37 -

“As for me, I shall behold Your face in righteousness;
I will be satisfied with Your likeness when I awake.
- Psalm 17:15 -

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Mike Riccardi

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Mike is the Pastor of Local Outreach Ministries at Grace Community Church in Los Angeles. He also teaches Evangelism at The Master's Seminary.
  • Karl Heitman

    Great post. So the Declaration of Independence is true, in a general sense, after all, wouldn’t ya say?

    • http://mriccardi.blogspot.com Mike Riccardi

      I feel like there is great danger in answering that question directly. :-) I think I’d just wanna say that life, liberty, and happiness are all found in Christ and in Christ alone.

  • http://twitter.com/clydetweets clydetweets

    “None but Jesus can do helpless sinners good…” When we find our joy in him alone all other competitors fade. Thanks, Mike!

    • http://mriccardi.blogspot.com Mike Riccardi

      Amen, Clyde! Great to see you in the comment thread my friend!

  • Ruben Videira

    Mike, thanks for such a concise and yet wonderful reminder. I love the connection you made between God’s glory and our call to pursue Christ. It turns the expression “to live for His glory,” into a practical and daily goal—to please Him, or as you said, “pursue His own happiness.” God bless.

    • http://mriccardi.blogspot.com Mike Riccardi

      Hey Ruben. Thanks for your encouragement. But unfortunately I think you’ve given me too much credit. I agree with the point you’re making, but it wasn’t the one I made. :-) Let me try to clarify.

      When I said “…it is also the Christian’s duty to pursue his own greatest happiness,” the “his” wasn’t “God’s” but “the Christian’s.” It is every Christian’s duty to pursue his or her own greatest happiness. This is so because everyone’s greatest happiness, objectively understood, is knowing and enjoying God in Christ (i.e., worship). So (a) the believer’s pursuit of his or her own happiness, and (b) his/her pursuit of God, are the same pursuit. Because happiness is only found in God. Thus, a la Piper, we glorify God by enjoying Him forever.

      But this serves the point that you made too. It does make it practical, because “living for God’s glory” — i.e., shaping your entire life so that you can enjoy Him — does bring Him pleasure. So we get to the same place, but understanding that inner dynamic makes a world of difference.

      • Ruben Videira

        Hah! I guess I should have read slower =) Thanks for the clarification. I’ve been thinking more about the issue of divine emotions, and I am using it subjectively—God as a being who has emotions, so my mind when already into that, before I even realize you were speaking of the Christian. But anyway… still, what you wrote it was a neat reminder.

  • John_D_11

    Mike – I like this post, but I also have a little tension with it. The easiest way to say it is I feel you’ve “over-spiritualized” Christian joy, and left the practical application vague. I understand finding joy in the gospel, that makes total sense to me, but I don’t think that is exactly what you are getting at in this post?

    For example, the statement ” our joy is sought and found in God Himself,” and God’s ultimate promise is “the gift of Himself.” When I read language like this (thinking of some, not all, of Piper’s writings, who also quotes Augustine often), I always am curious what does that look like? What do you mean by that? To me it seems quite Platonic, as if to create an unnecessary dualism between soul and body.
    Francis Schaeffer has influenced me a lot in this area, and probably explains my tension better. He says in Escape from Reason, “THe soul is not more important than the body…The doctrine of bodily resurrection of the dead is not an old-fashioned thing…God made the whole man, and the whole man is important…the biblical teaching, therefore, opposes the Platonic, which makes the soul very important and leaves the body with little importance at all.” I think Randy Alcorn did a good job clarifying this dichotomy in his book “Heaven.”
    Getting practical, I think the way we “enjoy God” is simply by enjoying the very things he has given us to enjoy, whether that’s marriage, mountain climbing, Christian friendship, great food, our ability to work, etc. I have heard this Augustinian view of joy quoted to porn addicts, like the “how sweet all at once it was for me” quote from your previous post. Augustine is right here – yes, flee to the “true, sovereign, joy” but I think he falls short by not doing what the “sovereign joy” instructs which is to get himself a wife and not burn with passion (1 Cor 7:9). Put off, renew your mind, put on, right?
    If Schaeffer were still alive, I would love to hear him and John Piper debate the question, ” Is it more pleasing to God for Christians to climb a mountain or pray?” or “Is it better for us to enjoy God by climbing a mountain or praying?”
    I am still working through this question. Maybe we could discuss it here?

    • http://mriccardi.blogspot.com Mike Riccardi

      Hey John,

      I agree with your push for a “new creation model” of the Christian experience and your resistance of a “Christoplatonism” that disregards the importance of the physical. Amen and amen. But I disagree that the view of Christian joy presented here is necessarily dualistic, platonic, or overly ethereal.

      I totally agree with the fact of enjoying God in His good gifts — marriage, mountain climbing, etc., as you suggest. But I think it stops short of the full picture to say those intermediate ways of enjoying God are the only ways to do so. (Ironically, my perception is that you react to the radical dualism that is overly spiritual, not by eradicating the dualism, but by emphasizing the physical to the exclusion of the spiritual. That’s just as dualistic, just on the other side.) Along with those physical things, which are wonderful and necessary, there is a more immediate communion of the soul with God Himself in the person of Jesus Christ as revealed to us in His Word. And that kind of communion — one that simply basks in the delight of all that God is, and all He is for us in the person of His Son — must be the focus of the Christian’s pursuit of God.

      If we ignore what you’re talking about — the physical pointers to God’s glory — then we’ll miss out on a ton of joy, and maybe even be tempted to go the monastic route. You’re 100% correct there, and I want to be clear that I’m not advocating that. But to limit oneself to only those physical pointers is to enjoy the rivers but never the ocean, to enjoy the streams but never the fountain, to enjoy the sun’s light and heat without ever looking up and admiring the sun itself, to be thrilled by love letters from your beloved only to keep reading and ignore her when she’s finally right in front of you.

      So: both/and. Don’t miss the physical. But let the physical joys have their intended end: the soul’s delight in the person of God Himself.

      • John_D_11

        Hi Mike –
        Very helpful response, thanks so much! Love the problem you pointed out in my thinking, that if I overly emphasize the physical, that’s just as dualistic, I hadn’t thought of it that way before, and I think that gives me a helpful discernment filter as I read Schaeffer (his complete works are on my wish list!). To be fair, he may or may not be imbalanced here, but some of the things I have been struck with after recently discovering his writings have helped me develop a fresh appreciation for the physical, including music, art, mountain climbing, etc.

        I still have a bit of a quip, perhaps semantic, with the language of the last line, ” the soul’s delight in the person of God Himself.” If it said, the soul’s delight in the person of Christ,” I’d be A-okay, but this side of the cross, something just doesn’t sit right with me relating to God in those terms, or maybe I just don’t feel its necessary language? (is this sounding heretical?) Why not just say “Christ” and save yourself the step of defining what you mean by “God,” as you did earlier when you said “there is a more immediate communion of the soul with God Himself in the person of Jesus Christ as revealed to us in His Word.” In that line, you actually defined God twice, and in fact, delighting in God’s Word, the Scriptures, makes the most sense to me, as through the Word I delight in the person of Christ, and through Christ know the character and personality of God.

        I get that the Psalmist delighted in God, but he didn’t yet have the revelation of God in Christ or in His complete written Word….do you David’s terminology would have been any different if he was journaling these Psalms in 2012? (don’t misunderstand that as a question pertaining to inerrancy).

        • http://mriccardi.blogspot.com Mike Riccardi

          Why not just say “Christ” and save yourself the step of defining what you mean by “God,”…

          I think the quick answer is: Even though my delight in God is mediated through Christ and my knowledge of Christ is mediated through the Scriptures, it still is, in fact, a delight in God Himself. Christ didn’t come to be a “buffer” between us and God, but a means of “access” to Him, to use the language of Eph 2:18. Through Christ, in the Spirit, yes. But to Him.

          To use the illustrations I used in my previous comment, I’m just emphasizing that when I enjoy the light and heat of the sun I actually am enjoying the sun. Or when I read a love letter from my wife, it’s actually my wife that I am enjoying even if by means of the love letter. The delight in the gifts must issue and end in a delight in the Giver.