It was a devastating and a liberating and a liberating and life-revolutionizing discovery for me in 1968.

That was my senior year when I moved on and went to Fuller Seminary.

When I made the discovery with the help of C.S. Lewis and Daniel Fuller and Jonathan

Edwards and Blaise Pascal, that in fact, pursuing joy is the only way anybody's going to glorify God.

Why should pursuing our joy in God be central to the Christian life?

In this episode of Light and Truth, John Piper demonstrates how our delight in God is one with his passion for his own glory.

This sermon was originally given at Trinity Baptist Church in Wheaton, Illinois

on September 19, 1988.

Let's pray together before we begin the message.

As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and return not thither, but water the earth, causing it to bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall your word be that goes forth from your mouth.

It will not return to you empty,

but will accomplish that which you purpose

and prosper in the thing for which you sent it. And so my prayer, Father, is simply that my words would accord with yours and so be caught up

into that powerful assurance that your word never is spoken in vain.

Be pleased, I pray, to accomplish significant things in the lives of every person here.

Some are very mature believers, some perhaps immature.

There may be some outside Christ.

But we all have needs, and I pray that in your sovereign wisdom, you would apply my efforts to their need and glorify yourself more fully through

transformed hearts.

In Jesus' name, amen.

For those of you who couldn't be here last night, let me try to summarize in a few sentences

what we did last night. There were two basic points. The first one was that the most passionate heart for God in all the universe is God's heart.

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