CHAPTER 14

DELIGHTED LIVING

Justification is not an end in itself. Neither is the

forgiveness of sins or the imputation of
righteousness. Neither is escape from hell or
entrance into heaven or freedom from disease or
liberation from bondage or eternal life or justice
or mercy or the beauties of a pain-free world.
None of these facets of the gospel-diamond is the
chief good or highest goal of the gospel. Only one
thing is: seeing and savoring God himself, being
changed into the image of his Son so that more
and more we delight in and display God’s
infinite beauty and worth.1
—J ohn P iP er , god is The gos Pel

Because your steadfast love is better

than life, my lips will praise you.
—P salm 63:3

in is not just an action; it is a condition. The heart’s

S sin con- dition brings about sinful actions.
Throughout this book we
have seen that sin can be traced back to a cause deep
within the heart. In chapter 4, “How Sin Works,” we called
this strategy “chas- ing sin back to base camp.” The only
way to defeat the sinful action is to chase it back to its sinful
condition. But what about holiness? How do we not only
stop doing bad things, but start doing right things?
Just as sin is a condition that brings about sinful
actions, so holiness is a condition that brings about holy
actions (1 Peter

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1:13–16). The evidence that you have killed sin in your life
is not just the cessation of wrong activity, but the creation
of right activ- ity. That is because holiness is not just a
condition but an action.
We often make the opposite fallacy that we do with
sin. As we have seen, many people think that sin is an
action, not a con- dition. This is flipped, however, when it
comes to holiness. Many are happy to see holiness as a
condition, but not an action. But this cannot be. True
holiness in the heart will inevitably lead to true holiness
in the hands. This is necessary because of the way humans
function, which we have seen. We only ever do what we
want. We only ever follow our hearts. And if holiness is
in our hearts, we won’t be able to keep it out of our
hands. If our hearts are rewired by the gospel, the gospel
will rewire our lives.
I want us to see two things in this final chapter. First,
we will revisit our wrong reactions to grace—guilt, shame,
and fear—and see how delighting in God can change
those wrong responses into right responses. My aim here
is to show you how reflecting on the character of God and
the message of the gospel can overtake any sinful
affection and replace it with a holy affection.
Second, I want to show you not only how to usurp
sinful affec- tions in your heart with holy affections; I want
to walk you through how holy affections turn into holy
actions. In so doing, we will complete the circle this
book has been drawing. The circle is not complete if we
just stop sinning out of a sinful heart. We must start living
holy lives out of a holy heart.

How to Delight in God

It is futile to try and speak about how one delights in

God. That is because delight is something experienced,
not explained. It would be like trying to describe warmth
to one who has known no

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 D elighted L iving

sensation of temperature, or like trying to describe yellow

to a per- son who has never seen color. Instead, it will
benefit us greatly to use the three false responses to
grace, detailed in the last chapter, to demonstrate who
God is and thereby enflame delight in your heart.
Who God is in himself is the greatest goad for
prodding our slothful hearts toward holiness. This may
be a new experience for you. Perhaps you have never
thought of fighting sin and pursuing holiness by
reflecting on the characteristics of God. But, the Bible
guides us into this pursuit:

Anyone who does not love does not know God,

because God is love. . . . We love because he first
loved us. (1 John 4:8, 19)

Sing praises to the Lord, O you his

saints, and give thanks to his holy
name.
For his anger is but for a
moment, and his favor is for
a lifetime.
Weeping may tarry for the
night, but joy comes with
the morning.
(P s . 30:4–5)

He is ever lending generously,

and his children become a blessing.
Turn away from evil and do
good; so shall you dwell
forever.
For the Lord loves justice;
he will not forsake his saints.
(P s . 37:26–28)

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 rewire your heart

Because your steadfast love is better than

life, my lips will praise you.
(P s . 63:3)

Our love comes from beholding God’s love (1 John

4:8, 19). Our singing and joy is based on beholding his
forgiveness and favor (Ps. 30:4–5). Our repentance is the
result of beholding his gener- osity, justice, and
faithfulness (Ps. 37:26–28). Our praise springs out of
beholding the fact that his love is better than life (Ps.
63:3). Killing sin and pursuing holiness are both based on
beholding.
A lack of beholding is the difference between a loving
and an unloving servant, between receiving and realizing
grace, between Valjean and Javert. That is because
beholding presses through the gift and into the giver.
Jonathan Edwards stated this beautifully in Religious
Affections:

In a gracious gratitude men are affected with the

attribute of God’s goodness and free grace, not only as
they are concerned in it, or as it affects their interest,
but as a part of the glory and beauty of God’s nature. . .
. This would be glorious, whether it were exercised
towards us or no; and the saint who exercises a
gracious thankfulness for it, sees it to be so, and
delights in it as such: though his concern in it serves
the more to engage his mind and raise the attention
and affection. . . . They first rejoice in God as glorious
and excellent in Himself, and then secondar- ily rejoice
in the fact that so glorious a God is theirs.2

Using the three false responses to grace that we saw in

the last chapter, I will show you how beholding a
characteristic of God changes our sinful condition into a
holy one. Then we will see how

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that same characteristic moves us to holy action out of

our holy condition.