Seven Tips for College Students

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - An email question comes in to us from the West Coast.

00:00:08.280 | Hello, Pastor John, my name is Nathan,

00:00:09.920 | and I'm a college student in the Bay Area, California.

00:00:13.320 | In my first year of college, I found your sermons

00:00:15.400 | and books quite helpful on the journey for joy.

00:00:18.600 | Thinking back to your early days at Wheaton College

00:00:21.280 | and your annual involvement at the Passion Conferences,

00:00:24.880 | what advice would you give to a college student today?

00:00:29.600 | - Well, I wrote down, I jotted down notes

00:00:33.120 | on seven pieces of advice,

00:00:36.040 | and there could have been a lot more,

00:00:37.280 | but I know these podcasts are supposed to be manageable.

00:00:40.680 | Number one, love God with all your heart and soul

00:00:45.000 | and mind and strength.

00:00:46.360 | It is the first and the great commandment.

00:00:50.560 | That is, use your mind, your college-educated mind,

00:00:56.520 | to feed the fires of the heart with the fuel of truth.

00:01:01.520 | Let everything you study function

00:01:06.740 | as a means of inflaming the heart.

00:01:10.040 | Put all your intellectual and physical effort

00:01:13.960 | into guarding and fueling your heart.

00:01:17.560 | Never give in to the emotionalism, which neglects thinking,

00:01:23.480 | or the intellectualism, which neglects the heart.

00:01:27.400 | Loving God with the heart is the great essence

00:01:31.680 | of why the universe was created.

00:01:34.760 | Treasuring God over all things.

00:01:38.400 | That's what loving God means.

00:01:40.640 | The mind and the body, when it says love God

00:01:43.920 | with all the heart and the mind and the body,

00:01:45.840 | the mind and the body are the servants of the heart.

00:01:50.800 | And then the passions of the heart become visible

00:01:55.520 | through the mind and the body.

00:01:58.280 | That's number one.

00:01:59.120 | Number two, the second commandment is like it.

00:02:03.160 | You should love your neighbor as yourself.

00:02:06.200 | Be a servant in college,

00:02:09.320 | not a self-preoccupied, self-exalting egoist.

00:02:13.960 | If you wanna be happy, want others to be happy as much.

00:02:18.080 | That's what love your neighbor as yourself means.

00:02:21.240 | If you want to make good grades,

00:02:24.640 | want others to make good grades.

00:02:27.920 | If you need help with math, give Jim,

00:02:31.160 | give Jill help with English.

00:02:33.960 | If you want to be in a home for Thanksgiving,

00:02:38.360 | help someone else be in a home for Thanksgiving.

00:02:42.320 | Loving your neighbor as you love yourself

00:02:45.720 | doesn't start after college.

00:02:48.880 | Number three, be saturated with the Bible.

00:02:53.880 | 10 minutes a day will not cut it in this world.

00:02:58.680 | This is the very word of God.

00:03:03.920 | Read it, meditate on it, memorize large portions of it.

00:03:08.920 | I didn't hear anyone recite from memory a paragraph

00:03:15.000 | of the Bible until I was 28 years old.

00:03:18.880 | I only heard verses, never.

00:03:22.080 | 28 years in the church, I never heard a paragraph

00:03:26.760 | of the Bible recited from memory

00:03:29.080 | and the effect it had on me.

00:03:31.160 | When Art Lewis recited Matthew 6, 25 to 33,

00:03:36.160 | was paradigm changing in my life.

00:03:41.840 | Memorized chapters of the Bible are important.

00:03:45.680 | Memorize chapters, memorize whole books,

00:03:48.400 | memorize the Sermon on the Mount,

00:03:50.480 | memorize particular Psalms.

00:03:53.160 | I doubt that anyone will be an effective Christian

00:03:58.160 | standing against the culture and for the culture

00:04:02.200 | in our day without much Bible memory.

00:04:07.080 | Number four, be done with all vainglory,

00:04:11.520 | self-sufficiency, self-reliance,

00:04:13.680 | and cast yourself daily on the help of the Lord

00:04:18.680 | to help you with everything, everything.

00:04:22.320 | Jesus said, "Without me, you can do nothing."

00:04:26.080 | Nothing.

00:04:26.920 | Believe that, believe that.

00:04:30.400 | Make it part of who you are.

00:04:32.120 | I can do nothing without Jesus.

00:04:35.560 | And then turn to Proverbs 3,

00:04:38.480 | trust in the Lord with all your heart.

00:04:40.840 | Don't rely on your own understanding.

00:04:42.560 | In all your ways, every one of them,

00:04:44.880 | every hour, every minute, in all your ways,

00:04:47.640 | acknowledge Him, heal, make your paths straight.

00:04:51.200 | So turn every hour to God afresh.

00:04:54.480 | Turn to Him afresh and pray, pray, pray

00:04:58.120 | for His supply of strength and wisdom and grace

00:05:02.120 | to do everything you do.

00:05:04.040 | You're not your own.

00:05:05.600 | You live in the strength of another.

00:05:07.680 | He bought you for this, so learn to do this,

00:05:10.880 | namely, whoever speaks as the oracles of God,

00:05:14.840 | whoever serves, that's us at every minute,

00:05:17.560 | whoever serves as one who serves by the strength

00:05:20.680 | that God supplies in order that in everything,

00:05:24.440 | God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

00:05:27.880 | To Him belong glory forever and ever.

00:05:30.400 | So pray, pray, pray, and be done with all moment by moment

00:05:35.000 | self-sufficiency and be utterly dependent on God.

00:05:39.240 | Number five, belong to a Bible-saturated,

00:05:43.040 | Christ-exalting, God-centered church

00:05:47.120 | that preaches the whole counsel of God.

00:05:49.920 | And be connected there with God's people.

00:05:52.800 | Don't wait 'til after college

00:05:55.320 | to be a mature, responsible church member.

00:06:00.160 | Break the mold of late adolescents

00:06:03.560 | who think that life is just play and school.

00:06:07.880 | It's not.

00:06:09.280 | Life is responsible membership in a local church

00:06:12.840 | relating to people of all kinds and all ages.

00:06:16.120 | So grow up, break the mold of those around you

00:06:19.720 | and grow up years ahead of them.

00:06:22.920 | Number six, guard yourself from craving

00:06:27.080 | what the world craves.

00:06:29.960 | If you find that hanging out with unbelievers

00:06:32.160 | is making you love what they love,

00:06:34.240 | rather than helping them love what you love,

00:06:36.160 | the one you love, back off and fill yourself

00:06:39.920 | with love to truth and to God some other way.

00:06:43.640 | Same with media.

00:06:44.800 | If the computer, the phone, the tablet

00:06:46.840 | is making you crave what is destructive to your soul,

00:06:50.200 | lay it down.

00:06:51.280 | Cut off your hand, tear out your eye,

00:06:53.200 | do what you have to do to be radically devoted

00:06:56.840 | to Jesus and His holiness.

00:06:58.520 | And the last thing I would say is test all things

00:07:02.720 | by the scriptures.

00:07:04.560 | You have one life to live

00:07:06.680 | and it is not a good thing to experiment with it.

00:07:09.320 | What will make life work?

00:07:12.360 | What will make my eternity happy?

00:07:14.000 | God did not give you life to experiment with.

00:07:16.480 | He gave you life and He gave you a book.

00:07:19.080 | God has spoken.

00:07:21.160 | It's not a matter of experimentation,

00:07:23.080 | it's a matter of application of God's word to everything.

00:07:27.240 | He knows all things.

00:07:28.920 | He knows what will make you happy in the long run.

00:07:31.400 | He knows what will make your life count

00:07:34.680 | for the here and now.

00:07:35.720 | So trust Him, know His word, test all things.

00:07:40.200 | Beautiful, thank you, Pastor John.

00:07:42.680 | And we have a number of other resources

00:07:44.240 | for students at our site.

00:07:45.400 | Go to DesiringGod.org and type student

00:07:48.720 | in the search bar at the top.

00:07:50.400 | And if you have a concise and specific question

00:07:53.040 | for Pastor John, like Nathan did today,

00:07:55.800 | go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn

00:07:59.160 | and look for the button that says Submit a Question.

00:08:02.560 | You can also easily send us a question

00:08:04.360 | through our free mobile apps as well.

00:08:06.840 | We're gonna be back tomorrow to talk about

00:08:08.360 | the street value of living by propositional truth

00:08:12.480 | in a post-propositional world.

00:08:15.520 | I'm your host Tony Rake, you'll see you tomorrow.

00:08:17.640 | (upbeat music)

00:08:20.220 | (upbeat music)

00:08:22.800 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Seven Tips for College Students

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