Do You Delight in God?

0:00 I've got twin boys who are 14, and we love watching Patty Mahomes. I mean, it doesn't get much better than that. So even though we love the Vikings, we got to enjoy the Chiefs. D-groups is what we call them at Furman University. They were life-changing for me, and I hope that you guys will engage in the D-group opportunities here. 25 years ago believe it or not I was a college student at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina I had grown up in church I had made a profession of faith and was baptized growing up and God blessed me with a really good home church that taught me the gospel and taught me I could trust the Bible and that meant everything when I went off to college, however looking back on it now at that freshman year i can see that something was missing in my christianity there was a deep struggle in my soul in those days because i wanted to be happy and i felt guilty for wanting it i suspected that this ache to be happy was more of a liability to the Christian life than an asset.

1:22 So living the Christian life, I assumed, was about my ability to put aside what I really wanted to do so that I would do the will of God. Your will be done, not mine. I know that you too want to be happy and you can't escape it. All of your life, you've been trying to satisfy that deep down longing for real joy. You try to do it through finding the perfect possession or finding the perfect spouse, enjoying good food knowing influential people or collecting reliable friends traveling to scenic places winning at sports whether it's as a player or a fan achieving success at school and at work getting your hands on the latest gadget scrolling through that thing trying to find some joy and satisfaction.

2:37 I sat on the plane last night coming from Atlanta. The guy next to me was scrolling TikTok as I sat down. He was in the seat first. I sat down and I thought, somewhere here between Atlanta and Springfield, he's going to stop scrolling TikTok. He never stopped. Never stopped. Looking for something to satisfy. I look around the plane. I get up and go to the bathroom on the plane. And I'm looking at the different aisles and so much scrolling, so much watching, so much wanting the next thing. Now, most of us aren't endlessly miserable. I mean, not yet. Not at 19. Not at 20. Not yet. For most. We find measures of satisfaction in the moment, but we don't stay satisfied. Not deep down.

3:33 Why did God make us like this? Why did he hardwire us to find joy? Why this universal search for satisfaction? I remember as a college freshman, with my very duty-oriented face, beginning to kind of feel a fascination with the idea of joy. I grew up in the 80s and 90s, before you guys were born. And we sang this song in church. I got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart.

4:14 So some of you sang it too. Sang about joy in church. But it felt so light. It felt so trivial. Where? Joy, joy, joy. And I remember in college, my freshman year, in a Sunday school class, there was a study on the fruit of the Spirit. And we paused over joy. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness. We paused over joy. And I remember feeling so fascinated by joy. Thinking, I want that. I want that. That is what my soul is looking for. I'm looking for joy. I want to have that joy. How do I get that joy?

5:01 And as I began looking through the Bible, I was amazed to find joy and delight everywhere in the Bible. And it was the Psalms in particular. We just had a Psalm up here. Psalm 27, 4. One thing I've asked of the Lord that I may seek after, that I may dwell in his presence. Seek after him. That's a psalm about joy. And I found in the psalms those days, one after another, psalms that were appealing to my joy. Here's three that I remember. Psalm 37, 4. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. And I was shocked by that as a freshman in college. Delight? There's a command to delight? Christianity commands that we delight in the Lord and promises to give us the desires of our heart.

5:58 You mean God's not suspicious of my desires? He gave me desires. He designed me for that and means to fulfill those desires. How? Second Psalm. Psalm 1611. in your presence there is fullness of joy and at your right hand there are pleasures evermore God means to satisfy our souls with himself.

6:32 Not just in seeking gifts from his hand, but in seeking him, his face, his presence, his person. He made your restless human heart for real satisfaction in him. He made your soul to thirst. And he meant for you not to deny your thirst, but to satisfy it in him. And there's a third psalm I remember from those days. Psalm 63, verse 1. O God, you are my God. Earnestly I seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh faints for you. resonated with me. I knew I had a thirsty soul. And as a college student, I was coming awake to that for the first time. And I wanted to be more like the psalmist. I wanted to know where to go with the pursuit of satisfying my soul. So the psalms had my attention. Again and again, they They tapped into my soul.

7:47 They discouraged my mere sense of duty in the Christian life, and they highlighted the central place of the heart in Christian faith. Both in the Psalms' honesty about the pains and difficulties and discouragements of this life, and in that hopeful command, rejoice in the Lord, rejoice in the Lord, rejoice in the Lord. Some of you may hear that only as a command. this as a promising possibility. It's commanded because it's possible. And because God gives His own strength to make it happen, He means for us to be able to rejoice, to satisfy our souls in Him. So the discoveries for me when I was in your shoes as a college student seemed like they were too good to be true.

8:40 that this undeniable longing in my soul wasn't just okay, but it was good. God designed it. He put it there and he actually wanted me to be as happy as humanly possible in him. And so I began to see that God wasn't the cosmic killjoy that I had assumed him to be as a kid, even as a teenager but I was beginning to see that the God who is the living God the sovereign God uses all his energy and power to do me good and it was weeks and even months and even years of beginning to understand this more and more deeply and I'm still not over it today and there was more good news to come maybe you growing up in church around church maybe not maybe you've heard christians talk about the glory of god the glory of god the glory of god it often seemed like this this throwaway christianese phrase and then as i began to read the bible for myself i saw the glory of god was everywhere in the Bible?

10:00 Like, oh, that's where they got it from. God himself talks that way. Like 1 Corinthians 10, 31, whether you eat or whether you drink or all that you do, do to the glory of God. So I had heard this, and I was reading this in the Bible, that God means for us to glorify him. And sometimes after the game, on the interview, we hear an athlete say, to the glory of God. I'm like, oh, yeah, come on, man. Just tell us about that last touchdown, like, you know, whatever. It seems like a throwaway phrase. I bet that athlete really means it. And that connects to a mega purpose for our lives, according to God in his word. God made the world and made us that he might be glorified. That he might look good like he is to us. The Bible is very clear about it.

10:55 And our own sense of justice resonates with this. This is right. It's right that the one who created us, the one who has all glory, would seek to glorify himself in our world and in our lives. But here's the thing. That creates a crisis for many of us.

11:21 Because we want to be happy. we want to be happy and God says glorify me what am I supposed to do am I supposed to pursue God's glory as the Bible so clearly says or am I supposed to pursue my own happiness which my soul makes so clear and the Bible says this is Bible versus Bible here glorify God Glorify God Rejoice in the Lord Rejoice in the Lord Delight yourself in the Lord Bible versus Bible How does that work? Sometimes I seek His glory Other times I rejoice in Him At the end of my freshman year Of college In a D group I was not a reader When I came into college And I wanted to be in this D group I really admired the older student who was leading the D group fellow brothers in the group it was easy to study 1 Peter I could read 1 Peter in like 5-7 minutes and then for the spring term they said for our D group we're going to read this book called Desiring God by John Piper and I was like oh my goodness I don't know if I can read a book that thick I'm not a reader I made the trek I applied myself to it I worked through it I reread sections tried to figure it out and the most life-changing discovery happened in the spring of that term in the context of a dGroup reading John Piper's Desiring God seeing that our happiness in God glorifies Him these are not two things glorify me rejoice in me these are one thing because as Piper says God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

13:25 That means God is as committed to my holy joy and delight as he is committed to his own glory. Because he glorifies himself through his people being satisfied in him. God is not honored when we pay tribute to our iron will by saying to him in prayer or in church I don't even want to be here but I'm here doing my duty what honors God what glorifies him what makes him look good is joy in him satisfaction in him God is most glorified in us when we say like the psalmist you are my God earnestly I seek you my flesh faints for you my soul thirsts for you that glorifies God in your presence is fullness of joy at your right hand are pleasures forever that glorifies God when we say nothing makes me happier than to know you father Father, and your Son, Jesus Christ, and to be over your Word, feeding on you, and in prayer and in corporate worship.

14:51 Jesus, you are my joy. Stedman used that word, treasure. Jesus, you are my treasure. You are my delight. You are the satisfaction of my soul. And in those words, and in that heart behind those words, God is honored. He looks really good when we say, I delight in Him. If you were to ask me, what is the most important truth you learned in college? All right, I asked myself this, coming to speak to hundreds of college students, when I was in your shoes a long time ago before you were born. What was the most significant thing that I learned in my college years?

15:45 For me, the single most important breakthrough in all of college, here's the way to put it. It was finding that God is not just the appropriate object of the verbs believe, trust, fear, obey, worship.

16:10 But that he is also the most fitting and most satisfying and worthy object of the verb enjoy. Believe God, trust God, fear God, obey God, worship God. Yes, but here's my question for you, SBU. Do you enjoy God? Not with the small enjoyment of a clever commercial, but the large enjoyment of basking before an ocean or the Grand Canyon. Not the thin enjoyment of humming a new pop song, but the thick enjoyment of coming to the climax of a great symphony or a great novel. Not the shallow enjoyment of acquiring some new gadget or endlessly scrolling on a screen, but the deep enjoyment of reconnecting and catching up with a longtime friend.

17:15 Not only does God invite us to believe him, trust him, fear him, obey him, worship him, but enjoy him. Psalm 34, 8, oh taste and see that the Lord is good. So, in light of that single greatest discovery in my college years, let me ask you just briefly here as we close about the daily rhythms and weekly rhythms of life. This is discipleship week. I really want to talk practically about the Christian life. If at the heart of the Christian life is the satisfaction of our souls in Jesus Christ, He's enjoying God in Christ. What might that, what forms might that take in our lives?

18:12 Let me give you three previews here as we finish. These are previews of what we'll talk about tomorrow night at the after dark session. I would love to say more about these things, and I'd love to talk very practically about them. We'll do that tomorrow night. Hope you can join us. Here are the three previews of what the next steps may look like. How do we position ourselves to go on receiving God's grace that we might have joy in Him? Number one, preview number one, hear His voice.

18:49 Each new day introduces a fresh occasion to hear God's voice in the Scriptures. Not mainly as marching orders, but as a meal to feed our souls. Not just for nutrition, like spiritual nutrition, but enjoyment. How do you approach the Bible? Do you come looking for things to do, commands to obey? Do you come looking to build your theology? I know you're students. You're in a season of life where you're building. You're storing up new information New perspectives, new trajectories Do you come to the Bible as a student?

19:36 Or do you come to the Bible hungry? To eat? I want to feed I want to eat Right now, this morning Coming to the Bible I would encourage you Is more like coming to sit down At a hot meal Than it is like going to the grocery store When you go to the grocery store You're storing up for the future You're grabbing some things. You're going to put them in the pantry. You're planning for meals for the future next week, maybe in a few weeks from now, tomorrow. That kind of looking for food, that pursuit of food is very different than coming to sit down at the table saying, God, satisfy me right now. Satisfy me this morning. Help my soul to feed on you and delight in you. So number one, hear his voice in his word. Number two, have his ear. some call this prayer when we enjoy God prayer begins to be a way not just to ask God for things that we would enjoy but to enjoy God himself in prayer we respond to what God says to us in his word by spirit and in doing so we commune with him. We both ask for more and experience him in prayer in the moment as our greatest enjoyment. The heart of prayer is not getting things from God. It's a very small part of it. The heart of prayer is getting God. Final preview, number three, belong to his body.

21:19 And one vital manifestation of life in the church is corporate worship. Times of worship like this on Sunday mornings with the local church. How amazing to be a student at SBU and have these chapels and have the opportunity to do that during the week.

21:41 What would it be like on a Sunday morning or here in chapel as you look around in the gathering to say not only I'm surrounded by many believers in Jesus. What if you not only said that, looked around and saw the believers, what if you also looked and saw I'm surrounded by those who enjoy Jesus Christ. They delight in Him. They are seeking their satisfaction in Him. We are enjoying God together together as we rehearse his glories in these songs. We are singing out of delight of the soul. Praise is the expression of delight in this God. As we hear his word read and the message preached, we are uniting our hearts together in the God who himself, in the person of his son, came to earth, suffered for us, died for us, rose triumphantly from the grave, now sits at his Father's right hand, bringing all to pass in his perfect patience and perfect timing, all his purposes in the world for our everlasting joy together.

23:03 So, coming to enjoy God, not just believe him, not just trust him, fear him, obey him, worship him, yes to all those things, but enjoy him. That has changed everything for me. It changed how I approach the Bible. It changed how I approach prayer. It changed how I approach the life of the church and gatherings like that. And you might ask, if you focus that much on being happy in God, is that not going to just make you this solitary person? Just off in the corner of the library all the time, just reading the Bible, trying to pursue happiness in God. What does it do for our relationships with people?

23:58 We'll talk about that more tomorrow night. but the short answer is it liberates us to love other people to sacrifice for others to approach relationships as not mainly I gotta get mine I gotta satisfy my soul but because I'm satisfied in Jesus I can give I can love I can sacrifice I can bless Thank you. so I pray students at SBU that one thing among others for this discipleship week for the semester for the school year would be reckoning with what it means to be invited and commanded and helped to not only believe God and trust him and fear him and obey him but enjoy him.

24:57 Let's pray together. So Father in heaven, I pray for some in this room to experience your grace as I did as a college freshman and sophomore and junior of coming awake to what it means to enjoy you. That you invite us into that. Father, you designed our souls for this. Not for the stuff. for the things of earth finally. You designed our souls to find their satisfaction in you. And in Jesus Christ, you took the initiative. You came among us. You died for us. You rose in triumph in Jesus Christ. And now you pour out the power of the Holy Spirit, the spirit of joy that you might not only command enjoyment, but make it possible with your omnipotent power.

26:04 And I pray that you would do that in lives in this room today, in this discipleship week, and in this semester at SPU. In Jesus' name we pray.