The Life

Building on the point from last week, I asked “Which voices speak loudest in your life?” and I thought of a shirt I saw that communicates a really common message on campus

Explanation

You have to know Jesus as the truth before you can know him as the life.

Old row shirt “admit nothing. deny everything.” What’s the message? (This isn’t the only message on campus but it is a big one.)

Let’s live it up! This is what it’s all about. Only in college once. How many more Friday nights like this will you have? How many more chances to sleep around like this will you have? When else will you have a time to network and do well in school so that you can be wealthy?

Folks at Troy sending videos to Old Row of jumping off balcony onto table like this is what it’s all about.

What’s the deeper message? Fulfillment comes from medicating pain.

That’s what getting wasted every weekend is. That’s what sleeping around is. (Not necessarily, but probably finding validation in that someone wants you only to be left feeling empty again after they leave you and needing to repeat) That’s what pursuing success is.

The message is that life is hard so the best thing to do is put a band aid over the pain in whatever way works best and that college provides a lot of band aids.

Is that really what life is all about?

What’s the even deeper message?

Our brokenness/emptiness/etc. can’t be redeemed it can only be covered over.

Like a doctor saying you broke your leg and it can’t be healed so the only solution is to take more and more narcotics to numb the pain.

The gospel message is not just that Jesus can deal with the root issue but that he has.

Sin is the issue—you’ve rebelled against your Creator and source of life—and he’s nailed it to the cross.

Until you start with that foundation you won’t know “life to the full” because you’ll be trying to cover over emptiness with new things when you need Jesus to make you new.

Read John 10:1-11 + context

Satan offers counterfeit joy that does not satisfy.

Why is Satan at work on the UA campus? To steal, kill, and destroy.

He’s not a cartoon character on your shoulder who is up for mischief, he is hellbent on your destruction because he wants to take as many down with him as he can.

Quote from Johnny Manziel in “Untold” documentary on Netflix. Something along the lines of having everything he’d ever dreamt of and feeling worse than he ever had before.

Counterfeit joy is like a paint job over my rusted car

This is why no one thinks they’re rich. The joy that the world offers doesn’t satisfy so we’re always left feeling that we don’t have much.

Jesus offers life abundant and eternal.

John 6:68 — where else will we go? You alone have the words of eternal life.

Alabama football, Rob Hayes, CS Lewis, and being too easily satisfied

Exhortation

Use your college years to pursue abundant life.

John Piper’s “Christian hedonism”

What normal hedonism is

“Learning that God’s glory and our joy are not at odds is a liberating discovery.”

“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” — The irony is we find life in the pursuit of happiness by giving up our liberties

“For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.” — Matthew 16:25

We find real joy in giving up our liberties because we were made to glorify God

Instead of pursuing your own way at all costs, pursue God’s glory at all costs and find real joy, abundant life.

That’s why Piper describes living for Jesus as “fighting for joy”

Use your college years to pursue abundant life.

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