The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever. (p. 18)This week, I want to address this question: If we are going to find joy and happiness in God, how do we know that God is happy? We've failed to find happiness in pleasures here, how do we know He won't fail us too?
----- | Sovereignty | -----
The answer lies in God's absolute sovereignty.
But the foundation of the happiness of God is the sovereignty of God: "Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases." (Psalm 115:3). If God were not sovereign, if the world He made were out of control, frustrating His design again and again, God would not be happy. (p. 33)The verse he mentions, and many others, teach the idea that God is in absolute control of every atom, event, and power in the universe. I love Piper's next point:
In the end, one must finally come to see that if there is a God in heaven, there is no such thing as mere coincidence, not even in the smallest affairs of life: "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord" (Proverbs 16:33). Not one sparrow "will fall to the ground without your Father's will" (Matthew 10:29). (p 37)Knowing this, we can never think that we are in the wrong place, or are not where we should be. Every "chance" encounter stops being "chance" and starts being "divinely appointed." He knows where we are, and has us there for a reason! His sovereignty leaves no room for coincidences.
----- | The Unanswered Question | -----
The lingering question therefore is this: If God is sovereign, why do bad things happen? Why is there evil? Why can't he just stop all evil?
Some people would argue that God is not happy. They would point to the evil acts of men, natural disasters, and the fact that Satan is somehow "winning" here on earth. How could God be happy with the state of things? How could he be happy when bad things happen to his creation?
I have two answers for you.
First, Piper would point you to the death of Jesus Christ. A man was falsely accused, beaten, ridiculed, and murdered - yet this was God's will! Moreover, out of all the evilness, betrayal and darkness, God used these evil things to bring forth a way of grace to mankind. The gospel is a constant reminder that God sees evil and is saying "I know, I know... but just wait until you see what I am doing!" If we see anything in the Bible, it is the continuing theme of goodness coming from evil.
People lift their hand to rebel against the Most High only to find that their rebellion is unwitting service in the wonderful designs of God. (p 35)The second answer comes is not from Piper, but from Lecrae, a Christian rapper. He takes a different approach on the problem of evil:
Look man, some people say that God ain't real because they don't see how a good God could exist with all this evil in the world. If God is real, then He should stop all this evil, cause He's all powerful right?
What is evil though? It's anything that's against God. It's anything morally bad or wrong. It's murder, rape, stealing, lying, cheating. But if we want God to stop evil, do we want Him to stop it all, or just a little bit of it? If He stops us from doing evil things, what about lying? Or what about all evil thoughts? I mean where do you stop? The murder level, the lying level, or the thinking level? If we want Him to stop evil, we gotta be consistent, we can't just pick and choose. That means you and I would be eliminated right? Because we think evil stuff. If that's true, we should be eliminated. But thanks be to God that Jesus stepped in to save us from our sin. Christ died for all evilness. Repent, and turn to Jesus. - lyrics from "Truth"So, yes. We can all agree that evil things happen. But if we want God to just destroy all evildoers - we would all be destroyed!
God is sovereign, and He does as He pleases. He is utterly happy (wouldn't you be happy if your will could never be stopped?). And so, Piper argues, we have a sure foundation and source of happiness in this incredible Being.
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