Latest / Pastor John Piper's answers / Joy That Cannot Be Shaken Meet Rae Lin

Transcript

Joy That Cannot Be Shaken Meet Rae Lin · Pastor John Piper's answers

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Him. My name is Raylan Dulia.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: I am a basketball player in Italy. I studied theology
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: and I love Jesus. Growing up in Racine, Wisconsin was
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: an amazing experience. I'm the fifth of six children, three
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: boys and three girls. I did everything from football to wrestling,
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: to baseball to basketball.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: We all kind of had these identities that were attached
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: to sport.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: I went to the University of Wisconsin Madison on a
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: basketball scholarship. Things were good in the first eight months
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: of my freshman year of college, and then as I
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: started to get into the late part of my freshman year,
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: I think I was just changing inside. I started to drink.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: I had never drunk up until that point, and I
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: started to get drunk and experienced just the college style
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: of life. I started smoking marijuana. I also got into
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: an ungodly relationship. I was just living for me and
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: there was no satisfaction in that. So I would try
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: to go to church during this period, and I couldn't
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: do it. I felt such like a hypocrite. So I
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: would sit down and I would just go, Okay, there's
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: no way, there's no way I can be here right
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: now with the way that I'm living I need help.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: I was definitely desperate.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: I came back on campus and everybody thought I was
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: just crazy because it was all about Jesus. I remember
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: I was going in classes and secular classes, and I'm
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: just like sharing that.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: And sharing it with my teammates.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: So I had no idea what theology was. I had
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: no idea that this could impact my vision of who
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: God was, which then would impact the way I lived.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: God opened the door for me to go to Sillero,
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Italy to go play on a team, and me and
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: my sister moved out there and we had no community,
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: so there's not a lot of evangelical churches in Italy,
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: and with no community, we would just listen to sermons online.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: So right in that period was where desiring God really
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: started to come to play in my life.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: And I just remember in that year of.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: My life, it was just eat real food and then
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: go eat of spiritual food and like go fill up
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: and be satisfied by sermons.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: And it was just like sermon after sermon, and then
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: me and my sister would just like then talk about them.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: So she's listening to one, I'm listening to another, and
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: then we would just like, hey, what are you learning?
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: And we would just kind of feed off one another,
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: and it was a huge blessing for me discovering these
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: truths just producing.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Me the want to let everybody know.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Just the ability to get this resource into people's hands,
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: I think is it can really change lives. One summer
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: in particular, I really was struggling with fear and anxiety.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: It was bothering me so much that I was putting
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: on Piper sermons and like these.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Clips in the middle of the night at like three am.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: And then I even started studying Romans, so like during
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: that period, I was just like, I want to understand
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: this stuff more. Okay, sermon number one, go into the
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: archive at Desiring God Romans, chapter one, verse one, boom,
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: and I just literally went sermon by sermon. It was
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: a lot of content coming at me, but stuff where
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: I was going, Oh, my goodness, to hear.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: The simple truth that God is most glorified in.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Us when we are most satisfied in Him, for me
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: was like the staple truth of life. My joy does
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: not depend on any circumstance or any other human being
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: or anything that has to do with my personality trait.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Anything could happen and my joy can still be full.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: So for me to have that truth to be a
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: staple in my life, that is a life changer. That
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: is a perspective that gets me from the first day
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: of life to the end of my life enjoying life.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: I can't even imagine what heaven is going to be
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: like if if this is what he offers. Now, I
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: live twenty one years of my life without the joy
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: of Christ. And for me, for someone to not experience that,
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: it is heartbreaking. It's like for an American to never
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: experience a plate of pasta made by an Italian, like
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: you have to experience it because it is it is incredible.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Di o e golodi figatta in ma puondo iOS no
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: sati spata in Louis