God's Glory & Our Joy -- From the Lives of C.S. Lewis & John Piper

John Piper's life and ministry is based on the idea of God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in Him. In his most recent sermon he goes into greater detail on what this means and explains how God wanting His own glory is not at odds with our joy. On the contrary, living for God's glory matches up with our deepest joy. So to try to sum that up: when God is most glorified in our lives is when we have the most joy in him alone. God looks the most glorious when we praise him out of joy just for who He is and not out of begrudging submission. God's glory and our joy crash together in a beautiful exchange expressed beautifully by C.S. Lewis in his Reflections on the Psalms:

"The most obvious fact about praise — whether of God or any thing — strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless . . . shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it. The world rings with praise — lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game — praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars. I had not noticed how the humblest, and at the same time most balanced and capacious, minds, praised most, while the cranks, misfits and malcontents praised least.…

I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: “Isn’t she lovely? Wasn’t it glorious? Don’t you think that magnificent?” The Psalmists in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about. My whole, more general, difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us, as regards the supremely Valuable, what we delight to do, what indeed we can’t help doing, about everything else we value.

I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not  merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is it’s appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed." (C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, pg. 93)

This page changed John Piper's life and ministry. If we listen close enough it might just change ours. Here's a link to the full sermon by Piper.