College Is for (Lasting) Pleasure

0:00 Well, the team at Desiring God turned some heads this past January at the Cross Conference, a gathering of tens of thousands of college students, as we gave out thousands of these little bookmarks that say on them, college is for pleasure. and then in small letters the word lasting so when you see it from far away college is for pleasure when you get up close and you see college is for lasting pleasure and that broad emphasis what you see from a distance about college being a call to pleasure and then it coming into focus that college is for, lasting pleasure, is what I want to talk to you about in these moments here this morning.

0:56 That gets at the message that we carry at Desiring God, and it's an honor and joy to come and speak to you this morning on why I would have you see and why I believe God would have you see that college is for lasting pleasure. And there are reasons that the college season of life is seen as a time for the pursuit of pleasure. Maybe you know this intuitively.

1:29 You're out from your parents' roof for the first time. You've left home for the first time perhaps. You have freedoms like you've never had before. and may not have again. You have discretionary time like you won't have again until you're a grandparent probably. You have health and energy and vigor like you'll never have before. So there are reasons that the college season of life is seen as a time for the pursuit of pleasures. But sadly, the pleasures that are often in view when we talk about college being for pleasure are illicit, unwise, shallow, short-lived, costly pleasures. They're momentary pleasures that so many college students live in pursuit of. They are thin, they are brief, and they leave destruction in their wake. So I'm not here this morning to call you to those pleasures. That's why we added the word lasting, that college is for lasting pleasure.

2:55 I want lasting pleasure, and I believe you want lasting pleasure, and I want you to know lasting pleasure, not pleasure that is a quick flash in the pan and then a wake of misery and regret. I believe God has you at SBU this fall for a reason and has you in this room right now for a reason. And so I want to challenge you this morning as to why college is for lasting pleasure. And I give you three reasons why after I pray. So Father in heaven, would you move and be on us in these moments? Would your spirit be at work to open eyes? Open eyes to your glory. Open eyes to the holy pursuit of lasting pleasure.

3:50 Would you give us a fresh focus and joy for your calling as students this semester? In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So three reasons why college, your college, your semester, is for lasting pleasure. Number one, God made you for his purpose. He made you for his purpose. And what is that purpose?

4:22 To glorify him. I know this is a Christian school. I hope that's not new for many in the room. It's all over the Bible, but often the first business of intelligent men is to restate the obvious. And this is a good restatement of the obvious for many of us that we need to know that God made the world and he made you for his glory.

4:51 Now, you may have grown up in church like me and heard this phrase, glory of God, glory of God, glory of God, like a little Christian tagline, put on everything. Wonderfully often, we may hear it, but it might go in one ear and out the other and you don't realize this is not a small biblical theme. This was a big realization for me in my college years as I began to read the Bible for myself and I found out God is always talking about his glory, his praise, his name, his honor. Those are four different ways among others of God talking about his glory. This is not a small theme in the Bible. God created the world for his glory and us for his glory.

5:49 And he sent his son to glorify him. And Jesus lived to the glory of his father. And Jesus went to the cross for the glory of God and for his own glorious exaltation. And he rescues sinners from death for his glory. And he is coming again to remake the world for his glory that his people might marvel at him to his honor and praise. So Jonathan Edwards wrote almost 300 years ago a summary of what the Bible has to say about God's glory that is hard to beat. Here's his one sentence about the glory. All that is ever spoken of in the scripture as an ultimate end of God's works is included in that one phrase, the glory of God. Now, if you want to know God and make sense of his world and find lasting pleasure, you need to know that all that God does, he does from his fullness of glory and for his glory and that he means for his creatures to do all that they do for his glory.

7:14 1 Corinthians 10, verse 31. Whether you eat or whether you drink or whether you study, I'm adding that, or compete or date, do all to the glory of God. So number one, God made you for a purpose, for his glory. And it's so good. It is so clarifying. It is so stabilizing to a human soul to know your purpose.

7:52 And to know that your purpose is not just a purpose, it's the purpose of the universe. So helpful. So SBU, in your classes, in your student life, learn your purpose. Know it. Love it. Live it. Number two, God made you for pleasure, which might feel in tension with the first. He made you for his purpose. He made you for pleasure.

8:28 God made you to desire and to experience happiness. You want to be happy. You long to be happy. You can't not want to be happy. Unavoidably, you pursue your pleasure.

8:50 And God designed it that way. When I was in college, coming across this quote from 17th century philosopher and mathematician, Blaise Pascal, was perhaps one of the most illuminating and life-changing quotes I've ever come across. Pascal says, all men seek happiness. This is without exception. whatever different means they employ they all tend to this end the cause of some going to war and of others avoiding it is the same desire for happiness in both attended with different views the will never takes the least step but to this object happiness this is the motive of every action of every person Thank you.

9:49 it's true god made you to seek happiness to pursue pleasure and you cannot avoid it but the surprise for many is that that longing to be happy that longing for pleasure is not bad and it's not neutral. It's good. God made that. He designed it.

10:21 In fact, what's clear as day from one of the Bible's most joy-filled passages in Isaiah 55 is that God not only made us for pleasure, but he appeals to our pleasure. This is Isaiah chapter 55. God speaks through Isaiah and says, Come, come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And you who have no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money on that which is not bread and your labor on that which doesn't satisfy? Listen diligently to me and eat what is good and delight yourself in rich food. Do you know what good news it is that the living God would talk like that?

11:26 that he would say, you're thirsty, and that's good, because I want to give you fresh, cold water, and you're hungry, that's good. I want to give you a feast for your joy in me. The God who made you doesn't drop in and say, hey, what are you sinners doing? Desiring.

11:59 Thirsting. Stop your thirsting. Stop your hungering. No, he comes and says, be hungry, be thirsty. I made you like that. I made your soul to be hungry for me. I made your soul to thirst for me that I might satisfy it.

12:27 The problem with humanity is not that we desire. The problem is not that we're hungry and thirsty. The problem, which is called sin, is that we try to satisfy our thirst in thin, weak, empty joys apart from God. In other words, we are far too easily pleased. This was another life-changing quote in those college days from C.S. Lewis. He says, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the the rewards promised in the Gospels.

13:22 It would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink, and sex, and ambition, when infinite joy is offered us. Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. that's what's going on in Isaiah 55 God's saying you're far too easily pleased with taking life pleasures trying to enjoy them apart from me or in sin running from me in your pursuit of happiness and God stands in Isaiah 55 like a street vendor.

14:30 You know what a street vendor is? Don't know if you have them in Bolivar. I'm sure they have them in St. Louis at the Cardinals games. And in Kansas City for the Chiefs. I'm sure you've seen street vendors. The Minnesota State Fair starts tomorrow. And there's gonna be street vendors outside the Minnesota State Fair. A couple years ago, my family came out. It's a hot day walking around the fair. and the vendors apparently can't get access to the inside of the fairground so they're all outside and one guy's lifting up his voice saying, he's trying to sell bottles of water and he says, you got a thirst? Come to me first. I'm your water guy. I said, I like that. He rhymes. If I'm gonna buy a bottle of water outside the state fair, I'm gonna do it from that poet street vendor. This is a humbling thing.

15:25 for somebody to lift up their voice in public and say, I want to sell you water. which is amazing that the living God through the prophet Isaiah comes like a street vendor and he says is anyone thirsty?

15:49 I know you are I made you to thirst listen up all who are thirsty come drink my cold, clear, refreshing water. Are you hungry? I have the bread of life. Do you need strength? I have vitamin-rich milk. Do you want joy? Drink my exhilarating wine. The cost has already been covered by my son.

16:24 Come, receive without cost. come find real joy in me that's what the living God says to you this morning. He made you for great, enduring, deeply satisfying pleasures in him. And in our sin, we so often settle for mud pies in the slum.

16:55 So God made you for a purpose, for his glory. and God made you for pleasure, for lasting pleasure in him. So we have these two. God made you for his purpose. God made you for pleasure. And now the question is, what's gonna be your focus this fall at SPU? Trying to do both these things? Should I dedicate my semester, my life to his purpose, his glory? Should I seek to pursue my pleasure in him? we have one last truth and one last reason why college is for lasting pleasure. That's number three. these are two pursuits. Sorry.

17:50 These are not two pursuits, but one. That's number three. These are not two pursuits. They are one. God's purpose in you is your pleasure in him. Or you can say it this way. your pleasure in God serves his purpose in you in fact your pleasure in God is essential to his purpose in you his purpose in you will not be fulfilled as it ought if you do not find your great pleasure in him his purpose in you to glorify himself comes about through your pleasure in him, which glorifies him. if I take my wife out for a nice dinner have a good time together we walk around downtown Minneapolis headed home and she says thank you for the nice evening You know that if I respond, well, that's my duty.

19:12 I'm your husband. It's my job. I'm supposed to take you out to dinner every so often. It's my job. That does not honor her. in the way that it would honor her if I said, it's my joy. There's nothing I would have rather done this evening than have dinner with you, spend time with you. I love you. You make me happy. my happiness there doesn't feel selfish to her. It feels honoring. She's honored that I had pleasure in spending time with her. there's some really good theology going on at Chick-fil-A when you thank them for your meal and they say, it's my pleasure if I got my meal at Chick-fil-A and said thank you and they said, it's my job wow but when they respond with it's my joy that's honoring changes the whole climate makes the meal different brothers and sisters I almost say sons and daughters I've got 16 year old boys not quite old enough to have college students but it's coming this truth is profoundly liberating you don't have to pick between living for God's purpose and living for your pleasure in him because, that's how we love to say it at Desiring God God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

21:02 And that will change everything. It will change all your life. It will change how you come to the Bible. This is not a box to check. This is a meal. This is a time to feed on God. I am here for joy. I'm coming hungry. God, give me yourself as bread of life in this book to satisfy my soul. It changes how we pray in Jesus' name, that his joy might be in us and our joy might be full. It changes how we look at committing to the local church, not for duty, these inconvenient, difficult people, but that in the friction, in the challenges, in the difficulty and inconvenience, God is bringing greater joy into your life.

21:56 This will affect how you date. That you'll look for someone with whom you can say, oh magnify the Lord with me. Let us exalt his name together as we together pursue our supreme pleasure in God. It'll change how you lead. That leadership is the holy pursuit of the holy pleasure of those you're leading. in God. It'll change how you exercise and how you can compete in athletics because the essential key to glorifying God in your body is pursuing your joy in him. And as you start a new semester, a new course of study, it will change how you pursue learning and academics, seeking your joy in God through the life of the mind.

22:52 Now, you might say at this point, this is significant. I could use some more Bible than just Isaiah 55. Now, if I had time, we could work through Jesus' teaching. I would work through those unblushing promises in the Sermon on the Mount. Your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Jesus is offering reward over and over again in his teaching. A summary of Jesus' teaching and ethic in Acts 20, verse 35, is it is more blessed to give than to receive. In other words, it's happier to give. That's the secret to Christian sacrifice. Christian sacrifice is not kill my pleasure. It's I pursue a greater pleasure that will uphold me through the loss of the sacrifice for the gain on the other side. That's the teaching of Jesus. I could send you to desiringgod.org where we've got thousands of resources on pursuing your pleasure in God, tackle objections.

23:55 We got an article today on how school and the life of the mind serve joy in God. But let me end with one text. And the reason I end with this one text is this is the text that was decisive for me as a college student. When I was wrestling through these things and thinking, is this just too good to be true? That God means for me to pursue my joy and that he means to satisfy my soul and his great purpose in the universe and for my life to be glorified happens through the satisfaction of my soul in him. Is that too good to be true?

24:37 The text that made the most difference for me was Hebrews chapter 12, verse two. It's where I want to finish. Hebrews is saying, let us run with endurance the race that is before us. Verse 2, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who, here it is, for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. what was so compelling for me as a college student and is still compelling for me is if this is how jesus lived if this is what got jesus to the cross that's how i want to live that might be as close a thing there is to a secret except it is not a secret for the Christian life because Hebrews 12, 2 tells us.

25:45 How did Jesus get to the cross? Through the agony, through the utterly humiliating shame, for the joy that was set before him. The cross is the ultimate test. And so that's why Hebrews 12, 2 became for me the ultimate text for seeing God's purpose and my pleasure in him coming together in one pursuit, not two. So how did Jesus endure the cross? For the joy set before him. The joy of saving sinners. The joy of defeating Satan, which I am sure felt really good. And the joy of being united with his father and being seated with his father at the right hand of majesty. So, SPU. College is for lasting pleasure. Not pleasure just someday, by and by, but real pleasure in measure, in this life, at this school, during the semester.

27:00 And I would plead with you, don't be far too easily pleased this semester. Don't settle for small fleeting pleasures. Answer your heart's ache for fullness of joy and pleasures evermore. It's one last text to send you with. Psalm 1611. In his presence is fullness of joy, and at his right hand are pleasures evermore. Set your sights on the deep and enduring happiness in God, in Jesus Christ that he made you for and he redeemed you for. And when you do,

27:45 your pleasure in God will make him look good. Your satisfaction in him glorifies him. His greatness is magnified when his people desire him and delight in him. Let's pray. So Father in heaven, how amazing that you call us to the great purpose and you call us to the satisfaction and pleasure of our souls. There's a lifetime of learning here, of application here. And I pray that you would be pleased in these days, these hours, this semester to work these things out in the heart of these students. that college really would be for lasting, deep pleasures for these students at SPU and beyond.

28:43 In Jesus' name we pray, amen.