RUF at UNCW - SoundSage

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Welcome to the Reformed University Fellowship at UNCW Podcast! Each week, we will post the messages from our RUF Large Group meetings at UNCW. This year, we're examining the Gospel of John to learn about the words and work of Jesus.

This week, in the “third sign” of John’s gospel we see Jesus bringing a healing to a helpless man, and confronting the narrow religiosity and unbelief of the Jewish leaders. This sign shows us that only Jesus can bring us the true Sabbath rest that will make us whole. Only Jesus shows us the merciful heart of the Father that never takes a day off from loving his people. And only Jesus can lovingly confront us in just the way we need.

QUOTES:

"Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

[The gospel] is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him….Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner.

Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: "ye were bought at a price," and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Grace is not some abstract doctrine or theological construct. Grace comes as Christ does. Grace is as personal as he is. In fact, Christ is grace. The unmerited favor of God is what Jesus is about, but it is also who he is. We should thus see grace as a personal action by a personal God who saved us from our helpless condition out of pure love.”-- Bryan Chappel

“There is no such ‘thing’ as grace! Grace is not some appendage to His being. Nor is it some substance that flows from us: ‘Let me give you grace.’ All there is is the Lord Jesus Himself … Do not let us fail to understand that, at the end of the day, actually Christianity is Christ because there isn’t anything else. There is no atonement that somehow can be detached from who the Lord Jesus is. There is no grace that can be attached to you transferred from Him. All there is is Christ and your soul.” –Sinclair Ferguson

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This week, in the “second sign” of John’s gospel we see a real-life illustration of what it means to believe in Jesus and receive life in his name (John 20:31). The royal official in our passage takes Jesus at his word, and in doing so, gets way more than he could have imagined– not just temporary healing, but regeneration and redemption for his entire household. In this brief case study on saving faith, we see that the life-bringing trust that takes hold of Jesus, is produced when Jesus grabs hold of us.

Further Reading:

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/doctrine-saving-faith

https://jdgreear.com/why-doesnt-god-answer-all-our-prayers-for-healing/

Quotes:

“Saving faith is a conviction wrought by the Holy Spirit regarding the truth of the gospel and a trust in the promises of God in Christ” -Louis Berkhof

"I contend that in all these miracles alike the incarnate God does suddenly and locally something that God has done or will do in general. Each miracle writes for us in small letters something that God has already written, or will write, in letters almost too large to be noticed, across the whole canvas of Nature. They focus at a particular point either God's actual, or His future, operations on the universe ... Not one of them is isolated or anomalous: each carries the signature of the God whom we know through conscience and from Nature. Their authenticity is attested by the style." C.S. Lewis, Miracles

“It is ever the Holy Spirit’s work to turn our eyes away from self to Jesus. But Satan’s work is just the opposite of this. Satan’s constantly trying to make us regard ourselves instead of Christ. We shall never find comfort or assurance by looking within. But the Holy Spirit turns our eyes entirely away from self. He tells us we are nothing, but Christ is all in all. Therefore remember, it is not your hold of Christ that saves you, it is Christ. It is not your joy in Christ that saves you, it is Christ. It is not even faith in Christ, as if that’s the thing you’re doing. It is Christ’s blood and merit. Therefore look not so much to your hand with which you are grasping Christ, look to Christ. Look not so much to your hope, but to Jesus the source of your hope. Look not so much to your faith, but to Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith. We shall never find happiness by looking at our prayers, our doings, or our feelings. It is what Jesus is, not what we are, that gives rest to the soul. If we were to once overcome Satan and have peace with God, it must be by looking unto Jesus.”- John Calvin

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In John 4, we have a case study in what it looks like for someone to pass from spiritual darkness into light, from death to life. This passage isn’t intended by John to be a comprehensive theology of conversion. Instead its the story of one particular person's conversion. And we see that being won over by Jesus is less like discovering the answer to a math problem, or a philosophy question, and its more like falling in love or, having a deep thirst finally satisfied.

*Correction: in the sermon, Sam states that Samaritans were descendants of Babylonian invaders. It was actually the Assyrian invaders who in 722 BC defeated the northern Kingdom, led Israelite leadership into captivity and settled colonists in Samaria (see 2 Kings 17).

QUOTES:

“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”― C.S. Lewis

“Just as we learned from [the Old Testament] that the greatest obligation we owe to God is to love him with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our mind, all of our strength, John is thrusting Jesus forward as the one to whom all that love is owed. "I am he," Jesus tells the Samaritan woman: the one the prophets have foretold and the one your hearts have longed for. Look no further. I've come to satisfy the yearning of every human heart. … To be human is to be thirsty, and Jesus calls his followers to come and drink.”- Jen Pollock Michel

“How do you get someone to love and accept you? You make yourself more attractive, right? You make yourself more lovable and appealing. That's what all the adverts tell us; it's the relentless drone of social media. Yet with God, it is the other way round. With God, failing, broken people “are attractive because they are loved; they are not loved because they are attractive" (as Martin Luther put it). In other words, God does not love people because they have sorted themselves out: he loves failures, and that love makes them flourish.” - Michael Reeves

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Celebration is wonderful! It's a core need of the human soul. But if we're honest, we're all a little disappointed when seasons of celebration end, summer vacation wraps up, the concert ends, and we have to get back to "normal" life.

In Jesus's first miraculous sign in the Gospel of John, he challenges our assumption that all good things must come to an end. By extending a wedding celebration way beyond it's normal, reasonable end point, he shows us the joy at the heart of God and the glorious future that he brings through his Kingdom.

The sign isn’t just about the miraculous power of Jesus— although the fact that he is able to bend the normal rules of nature is important! What John wants us to see is something more than Jesus' power. John wants us to look at his personality, at his character. And how this sign reveals the heart of God toward needy people who are longing for glory. People who, like us, are hungry for wholeness, beauty, and joy.

QUOTES:

“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”― C.S. Lewis

"The two events in chapter 2, the changing of the water into wine at Cana, and the cleansing of the temple in Jerusalem, establish the terms of Jesus' ministry. They also anticipate Christ's future work. To attend a marriage feast and to cleanse the temple were among the first acts of our Lord's ministry at his first coming. To purify the whole visible Church and hold a marriage supper will be among his first acts, when he comes again.'" --Bruce Milne

“The condition ... throughout the Gospel for all of Jesus' divine interventions is exquisitely simple — trust by doing something simple — and the promised results throughout, as we know, are extraordinary. We have no required absolutes in our story, like, "Please completely surrender to me and do these exceptional obediences." Rather, "Fill... draw... take" ordinary water from ordinary jars and then bring what you have across the room … We do simple things like trustingly obey; he does saving things like rescuing a wedding party from shame or like multiplying loaves for hungry pilgrims.”— F. Dale Bruner

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In our world today, we're constantly bombarded by advice on what to do to become more healthy people. Seek after physical health or emotional health. Set better goals. Be more disciplined. Eat better. Sleep more. Take up this perfect self-care routine. Keeping up with all of it can be exhausting.

But what if the health and wholeness we're looking for comes not bynot by pulling ourselves up by our own effort, but by following the lead of a loving teacher who is calling us to deeper enjoyment of him and fruitfulness in the world?

And what if we're not meant to grow ourselves, by ourselves? What if there is a loving teacher who is gathering a community around him that will grow us into the people he intends for us to be? What if it's not all up to you?

That’s what this passage is about– how God gathers his people to learn and grow in community with others. And John wants us to see – when we find Jesus, we find rest from our striving, because in the end, he has been seeking and finding us all along.

QUOTES:

"It is significant that [in Genesis 3] human beings separated themselves from God by hiding in the trees. But God did not separate himself from sinful human beings; he came searching for them. And the God of creation did not attack the hiding sinners, he asked them that gracious "first question" of all questions. This is the kind of God we meet in the New Testament Messiah as well. Are not the first question of Genesis and the first question of John rather alike: Genesis: "Where are you?"; John: "What are you looking for?" Is not a question itself, almost by nature, a kind of grace? Especially when it comes from the Lord or his Lamb? I believe the most thoughtful "evangelism" (which is a scary word for many of us who have been wounded by its misuse) is simply and sincerely to ask people who are seeking us out, as Jesus now thoughtfully does with his first seekers, "What are you looking for?" (Notice: Jesus did not come up to them, uninvited, and ask this as an evangelistic question. Jesus' evangelism is much more human and humane, as we will learn over and over again throughout the Gospel.) "-F. Dale Bruner

“(I)n Friendship…we think we have chosen our peers … But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of Ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples ‘Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,’ can truly say ‘You have not chosen one another, but I have chosen you for one another.’ The Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all the others.”- C.S Lewis

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We live in a world that values self-expression— it seems natural to us that someone would want to share, display, and communicate about ourselves to others.

When humans share about ourselves, we usually do it for validation, or community, or for a sense of security. In other words, we mostly self-express out of a sense of neediness.

In this passage from John's prologue, Jesus is described as “God’s self-expression”— that’s what "the Word” (logos in Greek) is getting at. Jesus is God’s message of revelation, expressing himself to his creation. And what we find is that when the eternal God, who made everything, expresses and communicates himself to his creatures, he’s not motivated by neediness, but by fullness. He's driven by an overflowing wealth of creativity, power, goodness and love.

And when the Eternal God reveals himself most fully, he doesn’t express himself in a poem or a post, or a painting. Instead, his self-expression comes in a person, Jesus Christ. A creature like us— a “self-portrait in a person.”

That's who Jesus is.

And John (the writer) is going to show us why we should listen to Jesus' message.

QUOTES:

"The way we understand human life depends on this question: What is the real story of which my life story is part?”— Lesslie Newbigin

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic ... or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” ― C.S. Lewis

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

What are some ways that you express yourself to others? Do you use words/clothes/hobbies/social media? Why would God (who needs nothing) want to express himself to his creation?
Missionary and Theologian Lesslie Newbigin said, “The way we understand human life depends on this question: What is the real story of which my life story is part?” What are some common stories that we tell about our identity, our purpose, and our future? What are the sources where people go to find these stories?
The sermon mentions the idea that Jesus could either be Lord (who he says he is), a liar, or a lunatic. He can’t be just a good teacher who is not God but is worth following because wise, moral people do not claim to be God. How have you viewed Jesus? What have you been taught about who Jesus is? How does John 1 speak to this?
Read John 1:9-11, 14. How would you describe the relationship between God the Son and his creation? How might a God who is only power/truth respond to this conflict and rejection? What is surprising about the way Jesus relates to rejection and conflict?
Read Romans 5:6-11. What does this passage tell us about God’s motives in coming near to people who are opposed to him?
How do you feel about the idea of a God who comes near? Does that feel scary? Comforting Encouraging? A mixture? How might this be good news for us?
Early Christians read Proverbs 8:12-36 and saw it as a prophecy about the Jesus the Son, God’s eternal Word. Read Prov. 8:12-36 and see where you find parallels with John 1:1-18. What words or phrases jump out at you? How does it change your view of Jesus to think of him as “Wisdom?”

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Welcome to the Reformed University Fellowship at UNCW Podcast! Each week, we will post the messages from our RUF Large Group meetings at UNCW.

At our final on-campus meeting of the semester, we had some graduating seniors (and our departing intern, Bailey) share about how God met them during their time in RUF. Then Sam closed us out with a reflection on the Aaronic blessing from Numbers 6.

The story of the Bible is God showing his people both how desperately needy they are, and how ready God is to love, rescue, forgive and keep them. The blessing (or benediction) in Numbers 6 is God’s reminder to his covenant people that they stand under his fatherly care all the days of their life.

*Note: due to the variety of people speaking, the sound quality is less than optimal in some places. We also weren't able to capture everyone's testimony who shared that night--but we hope you still enjoy hearing from a few of them!

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Welcome to the Reformed University Fellowship at UNCW Podcast! Each week, we will post the messages from our RUF Large Group meetings at UNCW. In our final series of the Spring semester we are looking at how to relate to God through prayer, using the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6 as our guide.

This week in our series on prayer we look at “supplication,” which is a fancy word for petition, which is another fancy word for asking. A prayer of petition or supplication is asking God to supply something lacking. In some ways, the entire Lord’s Prayer is a prayer of asking, with praise and confession and thanksgiving thrown in. Asking (along with lamenting, intercession, and other kinds of asking) is the most common mode of prayer in the Bible. And it’s the mode of living that is most congruent with the reality of God’s fatherly grace. The Lord’s Prayer shows us that because God is our loving Father, we should continuously bring all our needs to him.

"As far as I can see, prayer has been ordained only for the helpless... Prayer and helplessness are inseparable. Only he who is helpless can truly pray”- Ole Hallesby

“To come to the Father in Jesus' name, not our own, is to come fully cognizant that we are being heard because of the costly grace in which we stand. This is the one principle of prayer that makes it possible to be heard by God even though no one can follow all the other guidelines and "rules" as we should.” - Tim Keller

“We can do only what we can do and acknowledge our humble place in the grand scheme of things. This disposition is what sets prayer apart from manifestation. The practice of prayer presupposes that while we can express and pursue our preferences, we ultimately hand them over to someone with a perspective much broader and a love more generous than any of us can fathom.”-Lydia Sohn

Heidelberg Catechism Q & A 117.

Q. What is the kind of prayer that pleases God and that he listens to?

A. First, we must pray from the heart to no other than the one true God, revealed to us in his Word, asking for everything God has commanded us to ask for.

Second, we must fully recognize our need and misery, so that we humble ourselves in God’s majestic presence.

Third, we must rest on this unshakable foundation: even though we do not deserve it, God will surely listen to our prayer because of Christ our Lord. That is what God promised us in his Word.

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We tend to want to put our best food forward, sweep our failures under the rug, and downplay our shortcomings. If we ignore our failures before God and others, we’re refusing to acknowledge reality. And we cut ourselves off from the possibility of repair and forgiveness. So then, open confession actually leads to healing and trust.

When he speaks about confession in the Lord's Prayer, Jesus is pointing us to one of our deepest human needs. We need to confess our weakness, and our wickedness— so that we can actually enjoy intimacy with God and others. We must learn confession, because God uses our confession of sin to form us into a forgiven, forgiving people.

“Give and forgive— these are humanity's two great personal needs before God. Please give us physically what we need in order to live like humans; then please forgive us spiritually those things that we do or don't do so that we can really live as humans - free of guilt (since human beings "do not live by bread alone”) Food is humanity's priority need, but forgiveness is humanity's profoundest need.” - Dale Bruner

“Confessing is not a payment. It is simply an agreement with God that this was an ugly and unworthy thing for me to do, and I’m ashamed of it. I’m sorry for it. I turn from it. I embrace the finished, complete, perfect, once-for-all work of Christ afresh. I rest in it. I enjoy the fellowship that he secured.”— John Piper

“All of the Christian life is repentance. Turning from sin and trusting in the good news that Jesus saves sinners aren’t merely a one-time inaugural experience but the daily substance of Christianity. The gospel is for every day and every moment. Repentance is to be the Christian’s continual posture”.- David Mathis

“Its me. Hi. I’m the problem, it’s me.” - Taylor Swift

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As we begin the prayer, Jesus focuses our attention on God himself, the audience and object of our adoration and worship. And we see that Jesus doesn’t just tell us to praise God, he shows us why he’s worthy of praise. We should praise God, because He is both a better audience and a better object for our adoration.

Heidelberg Catechism Q & A 117.

Q. What is the kind of prayer that pleases God and that he listens to?

A. First, we must pray from the heart to no other than the one true God, revealed to us in his Word, asking for everything God has commanded us to ask for.

Second, we must fully recognize our need and misery, so that we humble ourselves in God’s majestic presence.

Third, we must rest on this unshakable foundation: even though we do not deserve it, God will surely listen to our prayer because of Christ our Lord. That is what God promised us in his Word.

“Worship is an act that develops feelings for God, not a feeling for God that is expressed in an act of worship. When we obey the command to praise God in worship, our deep, essential need to be in relationship with God is nurtured.” — Eugene Peterson

“The One whom we most need to behold has made himself known. He has traced with a fine hand the lines and contours of his face. He has done so in his Word …. By fixing our gaze on that face, we trade mere human glory for holiness:” ― Jen Wilkin

“God is a delicious good.”- Thomas Watson

“To change people most profoundly, we must change what we worship. Thinking, arguments, and beliefs are crucial as means of moving the heart, but ultimately we are what we adore. We are what captures our imagination … We must love God supremely, and that can be cultivated only through praise and adoration.”- Tim Keller

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Welcome to the Reformed University Fellowship at UNCW Podcast! Each week, we will post the messages from our RUF Large Group meetings at UNCW. This semester, we are looking at how the Spirit of God transforms our relationships.

Tonight we look at the final aspect of fruit, Self-Control, and we discuss how people in Christ are called to relate to their desires. Nothing builds vibrant relationships full of trust and mutual service more than the ability to control and deny our selfish desires. But, the Christian way of self-control looks totally different from all other methods of combatting selfishness, because it starts from a place of satisfaction and abundance. It begins with sinners being forgiven and reconciled to God through Christ, and made alive by the Holy Sprit. In the end, we see that true fulfillment in our deepest relationships comes not by following our desires, or emptying ourselves of desire, but by being filled with the supernatural love of the Holy Spirit.

“‘Just be true to yourself” sounds very intuitive. It sounds very right in our individualized culture. It’s a message we hear from all kinds of directions, but it’s actually a very catastrophic philosophy. … Jesus’ teaching about the self is that the most important thing we do with the self is not express it, but deny it. And the amazing thing is, as we deny self, we actually do become the real person God always intended us to be.’ —Sam Allberry

How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it; if you could really look at other men with common curiosity and pleasure … You would break out of this tiny and tawdry theatre in which your own little plot is always played, and you would find yourself under a freer sky, in a street full of splendid strangers.” —G.K. Chesterton

“When Jesus calls for self-denial and cross-bearing, he’s claiming authority. Following Christ means disowning the self and giving allegiance to him instead. And it means giving him allegiance down to the very depths of our being.”— Christy Gambrell

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For this week's message we're examining the gentleness of Jesus. Gentleness (or meekness) is the aspect of Jesus’ heart that he gives to his people which allows us to make use of power without abusing people. If we want to wisely navigate the power differences in human society and in our family relationships, we need to cultivate the virtue of meekness.

“Peter in no way diminishes the worth or capability of wives by comparing their physical strength to that of their husbands with a simple word picture. He is, in fact, guarding them from being treated contemptibly. [Our] emotions are not a sign of weakness – they are a gift from the Lord and can be a great strength. [Men and women] share equal potential for strength or weakness in all things moral, intellectual and emotional - question any teaching that states or implies otherwise.” -Jen Wilkin

“Jesus tells us who He is as a person: He is gentle and humble. Too many religious leaders, however, are not gentle nor are they humble. They are controlling and proud. They use people to satisfy their fat egos. But Jesus is refreshingly different. He truly loves people, selflessly serving and giving His life for them. He expects His followers—especially the elders who lead His people—to be humble and gentle like Himself.”- Alexander Strauch

“If you are selfish, and make yourself and your own private interests your idol, God will leave you to yourself, and let you promote your own interests as well as you can. But if you do not selfishly seek your own, but do seek the things that are Jesus Christ’s, and the things of your fellow human beings, then God will make your interest and happiness his own charge, and he is infinitely more able to provide for and promote it than you are. The resources of the universe move at his bidding, and he can easily command them all to subserve your welfare.” -Jonathan Edwards, Charity and Its Fruits

https://faculty.wts.edu/posts/the-fifth-commandment-and-the-household/

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This week, we look at the aspect of Jesus's character called "faithfulness." Maintaining faithfulness in relationships has always been difficult— it’s why Jesus is asked this question in Mark 10. But the Bible actually promises that God will teach us to live like him— to live lives of reliability, dependability and fidelity. Where can we find hope for a people struggling with faithfulness? The only hope for an unfaithful people is that they have a faithful Savior. Because God faithfully holds fast to an unfaithful people, we can learn to live in covenant faithfulness.

“The reality is that every marriage is a partnership of two broken [people] with good intentions and varying degrees of ability to deliver … If you want to stay married, the first thing you need to do it is to be insane. Because staying married is insane. Getting married is not. Getting married is fun. In the weeks and months before the wedding, you're in passionate love with this glorious gift of a human: the ring, the announcement, the engagement photos where you hold hands and close your eyes and lean in and touch your foreheads together like a pair of telepathic freaks, that part is fun. Staying married is not fun. Staying married is like being kicked repeatedly in the head by a mule who loves you, and the mule is God.”— Harrison Scott Key

“Often and often, I have in my folly torn up my copy of God’s covenant with me; but, blessed be His name, He keeps it in heaven safe; and He stands by it always.”— Samuel Rutherford

“The attachments of Jesus were abiding; fickleness and instability could never be charged on him. Others love for a little while and then grow cold; they profess eternal attachment and yet forsake; they admire and esteem us till a slight misunderstanding snaps every bond of friendship; but our Lord was the mirror of constancy, the pattern of fidelity, the paragon of unchanging love.”- Charles Spurgeon

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This week, we look at the aspect of Jesus's character called "goodness" (Gal 5:22). How do we live a life where we grow in genuine goodness and integrity? The Gospel teaches us that sanctification (growth in goodness) is not a solo project. We need help from outside ourselves! We can only grow in goodness, as we walk with friends who form us in goodness. This week, we see that genuine Christlike goodness grows in the context of Christian friendships.

“[There is a ] myth … of freedom… that the less encumbered and entangled I am, or the less accountable and anchored I am to a particular relationship, the better able I am to find my truest self and secure real happiness … it’s not hard to see how this strikes at the root of friendship. If your deepest fulfillment is found in personal autonomy, then friendship … is more of a liability than an asset.” — Wesley Hill

“When Jesus calls His followers to love each other just like He loves them, He’s not just going with the grain of natural friendship. He is calling people who might never have gone near each other into sacrificial-love relationships. Likewise, we should be ready to form Christian friendships with those utterly unlike us. And while sacrificial love is most associated in our minds with marriage and parenting, we need to recognize that Jesus issued His command to one-another love in the first instance to people who were one another’s friends.“— Rebecca McLaughlin

“People who simply “want friends” can never make any. The very condition of having Friends is that we should want something else besides Friends … There would be nothing for the Friendship to be about; and Friendship must be about something, even if it were only an enthusiasm for dominoes or white mice. Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow travelers."— C.S. Lewis

Further Reading:

https://www.bible.com/reading-plans/39780-5-lessons-on-friendship-from-jesus-with-rebecca
https://erlc.com/resource-library/articles/5-key-truths-about-friendship-from-c-s-lewis/

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Welcome to the Reformed University Fellowship at UNCW Podcast! Each week, we will post the messages from our RUF Large Group meetings at UNCW. This semester, we are looking at how the Spirit of God transforms our relationships.

C.S. Lewis said “courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality." Similarly, if you want to know if you’re a loving person— don’t look at how you treat your friends— look at how you treat your enemies.

Today we look at Kindness, the aspect of God’s character that enables him to do good to even his worst enemies.

“Kindness isn't mere niceness … “kind” means something radically different from mere agreeableness. Indeed, kind, rightly understood, can include all sorts of disagreeableness. Kind comes from the same root from which we get the word kin. To be kind, then, is to treat someone like they are family. To possess the virtue of kindness is to be in the habit of treating all people as if they were family.”— Dr. Karen Swallow Prior

“Cultural kindness is more about tolerance, being nice, and enduring differences without complaining than it is about love. It asks us only to be pleasant to those who are different from us—it doesn’t call us to love them. When kindness exists without love, it quickly becomes insincere, something we do because we’re supposed to. But kindness without love isn’t kindness at all. It’s an imitation. … In contrast, biblical kindness—true kindness—is always rooted in the steadfast and self-sacrificing love of God. … Godly kindness confronts us in love so we might be conformed to his image. Because he loves us and wants us to flourish, God’s steadfast loving-kindness will challenge us, tell us when we’re wrong, and change us.” — Anne Kerholas (https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/cultural-kindness/)

"What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.

Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded . . . sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.

Or, to look at it from the other end of the telescope: Who, in your life, do you remember most fondly, with the most undeniable feelings of warmth?

Those who were kindest to you, I bet.

It’s a little facile, maybe, and certainly hard to implement, but I’d say, as a goal in life, you could do worse than: Try to be kinder. " — George Saunders

(https://artsandsciences.syracuse.edu/news-all/news-2013/2013-george_saunders_convocation/)

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This week, we’re looking at patience. The essence of patience is the willingness to endure suffering. Waiting is painful. And patience is the aspect of Jesus’s heart that God provides to us waiting in pain. James wants us to know that in these painful seasons of waiting, what we really need is not a change of circumstances outside us but a change inside our hearts. He reminds us that seeing God clearly helps us to wait for God faithfully.

“Slow down. Don't be in a hurry. Life is long. Work hard, and the rewards will come. The dreams you have— some of them —will come true; those that don't will be replaced by others, maybe even better ones.… Being patient is what we aim for (or fail at) when sitting in traffic, standing in line, or waiting for a table. But the virtue of patience entails much more than merely waiting. The essence of patience is the willingness to endure suffering.” -- Karen Swallow Prior

“All patience or impatience is ultimately patience or impatience with someone." — James Speigel

“To stand in Heaven and look back on earth, and weigh them together in the balance, must transport the soul and make it cry out ... “O soul, are you not ashamed that you ever doubted the love that brought you here? Are you not ashamed of your hard thoughts of God and his providences, [lamenting] the ways that have led to such an end? Are you not sufficiently convinced that the ways you called hard and the cup you called bitter were necessary? The Lord had a sweeter purpose and meant better than you would believe. Your Redeemer was saving you as much when he crossed your desires as when he granted them, and he was saving you when he broke your heart as much as when he bound it up." -- Richard Baxter

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Welcome to the Reformed University Fellowship at UNCW Podcast!

Each week, we will post the messages from our RUF Large Group meetings at UNCW. This semester, we are looking at how the Spirit of God transforms our relationships.

This week, we’re looking at the aspect of christian character that Galatians 5 calls "peace."

In the Bible, peace is more than an absence of conflict. Peace (also called Shalom in the Hebrew Bible) is God’s vision and intention for how all human relationships are supposed to be! In Colossians 3, Paul describes two ways of doing relationships with those who we have the closest, deepest intimacy. One is governed by the rule of peace, and the other is governed by our natural, selfish desire for comfort. Paul shows us that for Christians, our union with Christ gives us everything we need to be people of peace. But we will only experience harmony in our closest relationships to the degree that they are continually being transformed by the already-paid-for peace of Jesus.

“The webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight is what the Hebrew prophets call shalom. We call it peace, but it means far more than mere peace of mind or a cease-fire between enemies. In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight — a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed, a state of affairs that inspires joyful wonder as its Creator and Savior opens doors and welcomes the creatures in whom he delights. Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be.” - Cornelius Plantinga.

“Modern-day Christians must admit that that these extraordinary resources for … understanding, healing, and unity are largely going untapped. The new self that is rooted in Christ's love and work rather in than our race, culture, and achievements is something that must be put on … Paul would not be exhorting believers to put on the new self or to overcome racial hostility if this happened automatically to Christians. You can be a believing Christian and not put off your old identity with its idolatrous desires, including the natural human inclination to make an idol of our culture, in order to feel superior to others.” - Tim Keller

“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.” - Elie Weisel

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Welcome to the Reformed University Fellowship at UNCW Podcast!

Each week, we will post the messages from our RUF Large Group meetings at UNCW. This semester, we are looking at how the Spirit of God transforms our relationships. We don't want to just dispense relationship advice, but hope to show you the gospel in a way that actually transforms character and empowers wisdom.

This week, we continue in the fruit of the Spirit and look at Joy. What is Christian joy and how does it impact how we relate to others? As we look at Joy in Psalm 16 and John 15, we see that joy is an essential part of the Christian life, because joy is an essential element of Jesus Christ's character.

“If we aren't capable of being hurt we aren't capable of feeling joy.” -- Madeleine L'Engle

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” ― C.S. Lewis

“The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams, but God is the ocean.” — Jonathan Edwards

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Welcome to the Reformed University Fellowship at UNCW Podcast!

Over-focusing on the earthly gifts of relationships can become idolatry. Focusing on the creator and giver of these gifts (and what he intends for you through them) leads to freedom and fruitfulness wherever you are (Psalm 1)!

This week, Sam explains the new series and shows us that how the Gospel leads us into the true life of love our heart, soul, mind, and bodies are designed for! We learn that, for those who have put their faith in Jesus, love is not a way to life, but a way of life.

“Every person is a heart-soul-mind-strength complex designed for love. .. We are ….. primed before we were born to seek out others, wired neurologically to respond with empathy and recognition, coming most alive when we are in relationships of mutual dependence and trust. Love calls out the best in us—it awakens our hearts, it stirs up the depths of our souls, it focuses our minds, it arouses our bodies to action and passion. It also calls out what is most human in us. Of all the creatures on earth, we are by far the most dependent, the most relational, the most social, and the most capable of care. When we love, we are most fully and distinctively ourselves.”- Andy Crouch

“And yet I decide, every day, to set aside what I can do best and attempt what I do very clumsily--open myself to the frustrations and failures of loving, daring to believe that failing in love is better than succeeding in pride.” ― Eugene Peterson

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Welcome to the Reformed University Fellowship at UNCW Podcast!

In this weeks passage from John 1, we see how the Incarnation -- God taking on human flesh and blood-- is the final step in the story of redemption. In this final chapter of the story of redemption we see God stooping down, becoming one of us, becoming exactly what we need in order to be found and rescued by him.

“Our hope is not in time cycling on predictably and benevolently under an almighty hand. Our hope is in time interrupted, disrupted, abruptly altering from moment to moment … When I pray, I am not praying to a philosophically complicated absentee creator. … because if you are a Christian you do not believe that the characteristic action of the God of everything is to mold the course of the universe powerfully from afar. For a Christian, the most essential thing God does in time, in all of human history, is to be that man in the crowd; a man under arrest, and on his way to our common catastrophe.”— Francis Spufford

"As a Christian I believe we live in parallel worlds. One world consists of hills and lakes and barns and politicians and shepherds watching their flocks by night. The other consists of angels and sinister forces and somewhere out there places called heaven and hell … One night in the cold, in the dark, among the wrinkled hills of Bethlehem, those two worlds came together at a dramatic point of intersection. God, who knows no before or after, entered time and space. God, who knows no boundaries took on the shocking confines of a baby’s skin, the ominous restraints of mortality.” — Phillip Yancey

“God became human so that humans could become again, in reality, human” —Augustine of Hippo

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Welcome to the Reformed University Fellowship at UNCW Podcast!

In this week's passage from Ezekiel 37, we see that once again, God provides exactly what his people need. When we are stuck in sin and rebellion, God doesn’t leave us to come to our senses on our own. When we are stuck, He gracious intervenes in his people’s lives through the life-giving power of his Word.

When you are stuck in sin, what you actually need is the life-giving grace of God working through the Word of God.

“The Bible is not just another book, and so we ought to approach it in a unique way. The Bible is God-breathed: “All Scripture is breathed out by God” (2 Tim. 3:16). It’s inspired. That doesn’t mean that the Bible is inspiring. Now, it is inspiring. But whether anyone in the world is inspired by the Bible, the Bible is still inspired itself. It’s God’s Word to us. It’s God exhaling, God opening his most hallowed lips and speaking to us. So, this Word is God’s Word, and this Word is exactly what God wanted to be written down in Holy Scriptures … Really, in its simplest form, we ought to come to the Word of God with the same sort of attitude with which we’d come to God himself. If God spoke to you, which he does in the Scriptures, if God opened his mouth to us, how would we approach him? Well, I think we would listen carefully. We would listen diligently. We would listen submissively. We would listen expectantly. And we’d listen with an aim to love and obey.”— Kevin DeYoung

“In sum, people don’t repent because they are preeminently committed to saving face. They fear exposure because they fear rejection, mockery, and exclusion. And these are fearful realities only to those who do not yet sufficiently grasp that they are accepted, cherished, valued, and included by Christ.” — Sam Storms

Westminster Shorter Catechism Q&A 24

Q. How does Christ execute the office of a prophet?

A. Christ executes the office of a prophet, in revealing to us, by his word and Spirit, the will of God for our salvation.

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Welcome to the Reformed University Fellowship at UNCW Podcast!

In these passages from Leviticus and Hebrews, we look at an Old Testament figure-- the priest; and an place— the temple. And we learn how what God promises through the priests and the temple places is fulfilled in the work of Jesus. We see that, throughout the Bible, God provides mediators: priests, temples, and sacrifices, that enable his people to enjoy his holy presence.

“With Christ’s death and resurrection, we do not need priests who offer sacrifices and mediate between God and us. Jesus’s sacrifice has paid for all our sins and given us direct access to God. We are a priesthood of believers, set apart to serve God (1 Pet. 2:9). We are called “to present [our] bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God” (Rom. 12:1). We live our lives coram Deo, in the presence of God.”- Rachel Green Miller

Q. How does Christ execute the office of priest?

A. Christ executes the office of a priest, in his once offering up of himself as a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice, and reconcile us to God, and in making continual intercession for us.

“What should we have said to the Israelite, who, on bringing his lamb to the tabernacle, should puzzle himself with questions, as to the right mode of laying his hands on the head of the [lamb], and who should refuse to take any comfort from the sacrifice, because he was not sure whether he had laid them aright—on the proper place, in the right direction, with adequate pressure, or in the best attitude? ... Should we not have told him to be of good cheer; not because he had laid his hands on the victim in the most approved fashion, but because they had touched that victim, however lightly and imperfectly, and thereby said, Let this lamb stand for me, answer for me, die for me? The touching had no virtue in itself, and therefore the excellency of the act was no question to come up at all: it simply intimated the man's desire that this sacrifice should be taken instead of himself, as God's appointed way of pardon; it was simply the indication of his consent to God's way of saving him, by the substitution of another. The point for him to settle was not, Was my touch right or wrong, light or heavy? but, Was it the touch of the right lamb—the lamb appointed by God for the taking away of sin?

The quality or quantity of faith is not the main question for the sinner. That which he needs to know is that Jesus died and was buried, and rose again, according to the Scriptures. This knowledge is life everlasting.”— Horatius Bonar, 19th C. Scottish Preacher

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Welcome to the Reformed University Fellowship at UNCW Podcast!

In this passage from 2 Samuel, God makes very specific promises to King David about his future plans for the people of God. And we see that God never intended for us to have for fight our enemies in our own strength. God promises to both rescue, protect and rule over his people, through his appointed leader, the Messianic King.

“The real Jesus is not a vending machine, a cheerleader, or a fire-fighter. The Jesus of the Bible is a king, a loving and gracious king ...

Jesus is not the kind of king who sits back on his throne, arms folded, waiting for us to get our act together. He rules actively. He initiates. He pursues. He loves. That's why Jesus came proclaiming "the gospel of the kingdom" (Matt. 24:14). The word gospel literally means "good news." The kingdom of God is good news because the king reigns with grace. Most kings would destroy those who rebel against them. Jesus invites us into his family and gives us a place at his table. The essential message of the kingdom of God is not good advice about what you need to do to clean up your act and win God's approval. It's good news about what God has done for us in Christ ...

Connecting the kingdom of God to Christ's person and work is important because many people think of Christianity merely as a set of timeless principles. But that's not the message of Scripture. Like a stick of dynamite dropped into the ground, the gospel explodes any understanding built on our morality and works.

Christianity is not ultimately about a system of beliefs or principles of morality but about a person Jesus and how he accomplished something in history that will shape all of eternity. Jesus doesn't give us instructions to build a kingdom; he announces that he is the king, and that in knowing and belonging to him, God's reign comes through God's people over all God's creation.

The good news is not only that the kingdom has come, but also who it is coming through.” -Jeremy Treat

“Christ carries out the office of a king in subduing us to himself, in ruling and defending us, and in restraining and conquering all his and our enemies.” - Shorter Catechism Q&A #26

“In the second petition, which is, “May your kingdom come,” we pray that Satan’s kingdom may be destroyed, that the kingdom of grace may be advanced and ourselves and others may be brought into it and kept in it, and that the coming of the kingdom of glory may be hastened.”- Shorter Catechism Q&A #102

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Welcome to the Reformed University Fellowship at UNCW Podcast!

In this week's message from Deuteronomy, we continue with the story of Moses and the children of Israel. God has brought them out of Egypt, to Himself. But because his plans are that they would flourish, and show his beauty and glory and power to the entire world, God isn’t content with just rescuing them from the slavery on their outsides. He wants to rescue them from the slavery on their insides. In the beginning of the Exodus, God gets his people out of Egypt, now he has to get Egypt out of his people— and for the rest of the books of the Torah— Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, God painstakingly and lovingly does just that. And he does it, by giving his people his rules— the law.

God gives us the rules of his law to train us to live well as his covenant people. We we see the law correctly through the lens of God’s grace, we will see that the law of God has never been a system of earning where unsaved people work to earn favor, but a pattern of life given by the Redeemer to the already redeemed so that they might know how to live for his good pleasure.

"The law was never intended to be a means of earning salvation. Rather, God gave it to guide Israel in living in a way that would please their Redeemer. Far from setting aside the promise of grace, the law was given to those who had been saved by grace in order to show them how to live in that grace ... the call of the law is to translate God's grace into action.

The law is the divinely intended means by which the covenant is nourished and maintained. The law shows the people of God the conduct fitting for God's covenant community. In obeying the law, Israel actualizes in human life its covenant relationship with Yahweh.

Israel was to look upon the law as a gift, not a burden. The law was a delight because it aided the covenant relationship. The relationship was not a matter of external or mechanical rules but a personal relationship with a God who is not only the sovereign King of the universe but also a father who has promised himself to his covenant people. Thus when an Israelite son asked his father what the law meant, the answer was the story of the exodus and the fulfillment of covenant promise, "the old, old story of God's saving love and deliverance. The very meaning of the law was to be found in the Gospel." -Michael Williams

“Whenever we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are good—above all, that we are better than someone else—I think we may be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil."— C.S. Lewis

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Welcome to the Reformed University Fellowship at UNCW Podcast!

In this week's message from Exodus 2 & 3, we learn how our covenant relationship with God relates to the forces outside us that enslave and overwhelm us. In the story of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob in Genesis, the question is "can God’s promises be fulfilled despite his people’s weakness, doubt, sin and disobedience?" In the Exodus story, the question is "can God’s promises come true even if all the powers of the world are stacked against them?" In this passage, we see that our LORD is sovereign over the darkness outside, as well as the darkness inside his covenant people.

“The word rendered LORD (all capitals) in most modern-day English translations consists of four Hebrew consonants, YHWH (יְהוָה). It is God's covenant name, reserved for the people who are in close relationship with him. … God is self-sufficient and find identity in nothing greater than himself and in nothing outside himself. He reveals himself when he wishes and as he wishes. He does not say. 'I am whoever you want me to be’ or ‘Who I am does not matter.’ This God is not our wingman.”- Chris Watkin

“Let us go. It will become the refrain of the next sixteen chapters of Exodus. Seven times, Moses will bring the words of God to Pharaoh: "Let my people go that they may serve me, that they may make a feast to me in the wilderness.”… A feast in the wilderness. An act of worship. Something heretofore out of the question. Bitter servitude to Pharaoh had made blessed service to God an impossibility for Israel. How could they serve both God and Pharaoh? Obedient worship to the King of heaven cannot be offered by those enslaved in the kingdom of Pharaoh. Let us go.” — Jen Wilkin

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Welcome to the Reformed University Fellowship at UNCW Podcast!

Each week, we will post the messages from our RUF Large Group meetings at UNCW. This semester, we are looking at the big storyline of redemption that is laid out for us in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. In this week's message from Genesis 17, we see how throughout the Bible God names and claims his covenant people as his own, giving them covenant signs and seals to help build up their weak, flagging faith.

“This is what God does through the Sacraments: he signifies his covenant promises, he seals those promises, and he actually applies to us the promises of the gospel.”— Scott Swain

“Nothing that we do, whether it be ceremonial or whether it be moral, contributes to [our] justification, because the ground of that justification is not something in us, and it’s not something that we do, it’s grounded in what Christ does. And therefore, circumcision, and outward rituals contribute nothing to that justification. . . .

We still live in a day and time where people teach that there are certain religious rights that need to be done in order to be right with God. And it’s very important for us to know the difference between something which is necessary for salvation and something which is necessary for obedience. And it’s very important for us to know the distinction between something that is required in order to be accepted by God, and something that flows from and confirms that we have been accepted with God. Knowing that difference is very, very important, and Paul is pointing to it here. For instance, it is clear from what Paul is saying [in Romans 4] that to say that baptism, that water baptism is somehow necessary for salvation is wrong. You know Baptists and Presbyterians, for instance, have some differences over baptism. Who ought to receive it? How it ought to be done. Who are the proper recipients? What’s the right mode? But we’re absolutely agreed on this: water baptism is not necessary for salvation, and yet there are many who teach that it is; that if you do not receive water baptism, you are not and cannot be saved. So that in some cases, there are priests and people who will actually go to a dying infant’s hospital room and attempt to baptize the child before the child dies because baptism is necessary for salvation. And the apostle Paul is saying there is no rite which is necessary for justification, because justification is not based on what we do, it’s based on what Christ has done. And the righteousness that we received in justification is not our righteousness, it’s not our moral righteousness, it’s not our ritual righteousness, it’s Christ’s righteousness. “And furthermore,” Paul says, “the ceremonial code pointed to a greater righteousness to come and that righteousness is the righteousness of Christ.”- Ligon Duncan

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Welcome to the Reformed University Fellowship at UNCW Podcast!

Each week, we will post the messages from our RUF Large Group meetings at UNCW. This semester, we are looking at the big storyline of redemption that is laid out for us in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. In this week's message from Genesis 12 & 15, we see how God further defines His relationship to us as one based on a covenant of grace, rooted in his faithfulness.

“We know little about Abram's life when he takes center stage in the biblical drama. The clearest indication is given at the end of the book of Joshua, when Joshua tells the people of Israel that Abraham's family "served other gods" (Josh 24: 2). Like Noah, then, it does not seem that Abram had any extraordinary gifts or virtues to distinguish him from anyone else living beyond the Euphrates at that time. God chose him because he is the one God chose. This makes what happens at the beginning of chapter 12 all the more remarkable. . . . Abram does not seek it, and God does not ask Abram's permission before making grand promises. Out of nowhere . . . God decisively intervenes in the story of Abram and in the story of the human race, and he does so by sheer grace.— Chris Watkin

“In Deuteronomy 7, God says to the children of Israel, " I didn't love you because you were the greatest of the nations (you were actually a small nation).I didn't love you because you were the richest of nations (you were actually a pretty poor nation). I didn't love you because you were a powerful nation (you were actually pretty weak). I loved you because I set my love on you. And that's the reason I love you. . . . Do you realize what God is saying? He's saying, "let me tell you the reason I love you. I love you just because I love you. I don't love you because you're better, or because you've done this or you've done that, I just love you because I love you. See, that's grace." — Tim Keller

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In this message from our 2023 Fall Conference at Camp Greystone, Rev. Sid Druen teaches us how the doctrine of faith and repentance takes us beyond our efficiency. In this final sermon, we see Jesus tell two stories that celebrate human honesty and how diligently God seeks us and how much He rejoices over us.

Outline:

Repentance looks like:

(1) Looking Up and Feeling Lost,

(2) Being Diligently Sought Out,

(3) Being Wildly Rejoiced Over

Discussion Questions:

What is one emotion to the passage or sermon?
Do you identify more with the Pharisees and Scribes or the Tax Collectors and Sinners? Why?
How does God’s diligence in seeking the one versus the 99 transform your ideas about efficiency?
What do you imagine it looks like for God to wildly rejoice over your repentance? (What do you do? What does God do?)

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In this message from our 2023 Fall Conference at Camp Greystone, Rev. Sid Druen explores Jesus' teaching on the reality of prayer. In Matthew 7, Jesus shows us that we can pray how we want because of who we pray to (our Father in Heaven); and that this Father’s character changes why we pray (and how we live).

Outline:

(1) Jesus says how to pray

(2) Jesus says who we pray to

Discussion Questions:

What is your gut-reaction to the passage or sermon?
What does prayer feel like for you? (Maybe one good feeling and one bad feeling?)
Do you feel permission to “say anything” to God? Why or why not?
What would you ask for if could really ask God for anything? (Why that thing?)
How does who God is transform a specific doubt you have- about God or your life?

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In this message from our 2023 Fall Conference at Camp Greystone, Rev. Sid Druen shares how the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount takes us beyond our self-image. In the Matthew 6, Jesus diagnoses our false tendency to perform; and Jesus prescribes a physical therapy (a different, more real practice) as well as an internal medicine (seeing ourselves as God the Father sees us).

Outline:

(1) Jesus’ diagnosis of our performance problem,

(2) The physical therapy of Jesus’ remedy (what & how),

(3) The internal medicine of Jesus’ remedy (why & who for

Discussion Questions:

What questions do you have about the passage or sermon?
What do you think you need to do (or be seen doing) to get to the next “star” level on your campus?
How can you do the good things you do differently- for different reasons?
How does what Jesus has done for us allow us to “work hard with a relaxed heart”?
What would be different about your life if you operated out of God’s joy in being with you?

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In this message from our 2023 Fall Conference at Camp Greystone, Rev. Sid Druen teaches us how the Kingdom of God actually operates in this world, and this changes both how we live and how we measure progress in our lives. We hope you are helped by it!

Outline:

What seems small and contained is actually large and all-over-the-place, in God,
What looks flaky and hidden is actually transformational at a deeper level

Discussion Questions:

What thoughts do you have about the passage or sermon?
What seems small about God in the world right now?
What would it look like for that small thing to grow large and all-over-the-place?
What looks hidden about God in your life right now?
How might God transform your expectations about productivity- God’s or yours?

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Welcome to the Reformed University Fellowship at UNCW Podcast!

Each week, we will post the messages from our RUF Large Group meetings at UNCW. This semester, we are looking at the big storyline of redemption that is laid out for us in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. In this week's message from Genesis 6-9, we explore the story of Noah, his family, the flood, and the promises that God makes to humanity and to the whole creation. In this next chapter of the story, we learn that nothing in all creation (not even our worst actions) can stop God’s gracious purposes from coming to pass, because God refuses to give up on his good plan for his creation.

“Genesis 6-9 is not first and foremost a story about Noah. It is primarily a story about God, his anger, and his judgment. We tend to think of God's anger in terms of two extremes, each inadequate: God is either presented as the benevolent granddaddy who would never hurt anyone (and who is therefore no help in bringing justice to a hurting world and stemming the tide of wrongdoing) or as a capricious, unhinged despot (the deity of Richard Dawkins's imagination) liable to fly off the handle at any moment. What is fascinating about the way God is presented in the flood narrative (and, for that matter, in the rest of the Bible as well) is that he is neither simply furious nor utterly benevolent, but he acts to save people our of the midst of his own wrath and settled opposition to sin.

The waters that drowned the human race were also the waters that floated the ark and saved Noah and his family: judgment and grace flow from the same source, not from a good god fighting against a bad god. . . . In the flood narrative it is God who saves Noah from God. In the midst of the torrent of his own raging justice God places a floating ship of mercy. This is a distinctive biblical figure. It is God whom we fear: his anger at our rebellion against him. But it is in God we hope, in his promise of rescue, of the serpent crusher. “—Chris Watkin

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Welcome to the Reformed University Fellowship at UNCW Podcast!

Each week, we will post the messages from our RUF Large Group meetings at UNCW. This semester, we are looking at the big storyline of redemption that is laid out for us in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. In this week's message from Genesis 3, we look at the how sin and alienation from God entered into God's good creation. Theologians have called this "the fall."

When we look at the Genesis account, we see that the Fall is not a fall FROM grace. It’s actually a fall from perfection. It's a fall into grace. Grace means "undeserved or unearned favor." It's exactly what sinners need, what failures need. When we look at God's dealing with humanity from Genesis 3 onward, we see that all of God’s relating to us is from a place of grace.

“Christianity frames matters altogether differently [than other philosophies]. There is a fault line between good and evil, but it does not run between aspects of creation, between human faculties or between different social groups. It runs down the middle them all. It is not that the material is inherently corrupt and the immaterial pure, but both of them are created things subject to the fall; it is not this the appetite is inherently corrupt and reason inherently pure, but the same line runs down the middle of our appetites and down the middle of our reason.” —Chris Watkin

“I am a democrat because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they're not true.” C.S. Lewis

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This passage shows that true human flourishing comes within the context of a personal relationship with our Creator God, as we live under God's fatherly care and commands.

"The world we’ve built using technology is less and less good for the most important thing about us, which is our design for love. From the moment we come into the world, what we are most looking for, most in need of, most designed to learn to give and receive from others, is love — intimate, profound, mutual relationships of giving and receiving, even at great cost to ourselves. That is truly what love is . . . we’re all “looking for someone looking for us.” None of us were born looking for a screen. We were all born looking for a face”—Andy Crouch

"Belonging necessitates limits. The question is to whom we belong. If we belong to ourselves, then we set our own limits which means we have no limits except our own will. If we belong to God, then knowing and abiding by His limits enables us to live as we were created to live, as the humans He designed us to be. Christians must be particularly careful here. Accepting limits is not the same thing as accepting that you belong to God. It's possible to obey many of God's limits and still deny that you belong to Him. . . . If these limits are freely chosen, they're still fundamentally an expression of autonomy. And that's how one can so easily belong in the contemporary church and strictly follow Christian [ethical] teachings while still being in absolute rebellion to the reality that you are not your own but belong to Christ. Christian ethics, like any morality, can be treated as a lifestyle option." - Alan Noble

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Welcome to the Reformed University Fellowship at UNCW Podcast!

Each week, we will post the messages from our RUF Large Group meetings at UNCW. This semester, we are looking at the big storyline of redemption that is laid out for us in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. In this week's message, we look at Jesus' resurrection appearance to two of his disciples in Luke 24:13-35 and what this passage tells us about how to understand both the story of our lives and the story of the biblical narrative. Luke wants his readers (and us!) to know that we can only make sense of our lives in and through the life of the resurrected Son of God, Jesus the Messiah.

"The way we understand human life depends on this question: What is the real story of which my life story is part?” - Lesslie Newbigin

“The resurrection means not merely that Christians have a hope for the future but that they have a hope that comes from the future. The Bible’s startling message is that when Jesus rose, he brought the future kingdom of God into the present … In the resurrection we have the presence of the future. The power by which God will finally destroy all suffering, evil, deformity, and death at the end of time has broken into history now and is available—partially but substantially—now. When we unite with the risen Christ by faith, that future power that is potent enough to remake the universe comes into us.”— Tim Keller

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In our final sermon from the Apostle's Creed, we ending with a message of hope about what the God is doing right now, and has promised to do in the future.

The last four phrases of the Apostles Creed ( the Communion of Saints, the Forgiveness of Sins, the Resurrection of the Body and Life Everlasting)remind us that our hope does not rest in what we can do or accomplish. Our hope rests in what the Father has planned, the Son has accomplished, and the Spirit is bringing to fruition through his power at work in the world. As we look at 1 John 3 we see that we can live with an indestructible hope for the future, because of what the Spirit is doing right now in the present.

“The resurrection was indeed a miraculous display of God’s power, but we should not see it as a suspension of the natural order of the world. Rather it was the beginning of the restoration of the natural order of the world, the world as God intended it to be . . . The resurrection means not merely that Christians have a hope for the future but that they have a hope that comes from the future. The Bible’s startling message is that when Jesus rose, he brought the future kingdom of God into the present …  In the resurrection we have the presence of the future. The power by which God will finally destroy all suffering, evil, deformity, and death at the end of time has broken into history now and is available—partially but substantially—now. When we unite with the risen Christ by faith, that future power that is potent enough to remake the universe comes into us.”— Tim Keller

"Grant, Almighty God, since we have already entered in hope upon the threshold of our eternal inheritance, and know that there is a certain mansion for us in heaven after Christ has been received there, who is our head, and the first-fruits of our salvation: Grant that we may proceed more and more in the course of thy holy calling until at length we reach the goal, and so enjoy that eternal glory of which you afford us a taste in this world, by the same Christ our Lord. Amen."—John Calvin

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This week in our series on the Apostles' Creed we’re continuing to talk about the work of God the Spirit. The Spirit is the Helper who applies redemption to God’s people, empowering them to live as God's servants and witnesses in this world. Tonight, we will see the good news that God hasn't left us to ourselves, and he doesn't expect you fix yourself by yourself! God is loving his creation (including you and me) back to life and bringing his heavenly plan to pass through the Church.

“Why church? The short answer is because the Holy Spirit formed it to be a colony of heaven in the country of death.. … Church is an appointed gathering of named people in particular places who practice a life of resurrection in a world in which death gets the biggest headlines.” - Eugene Peterson

“The Church is an object of faith. In the Apostles’ Creed we pray: “I believe … in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.” ….The Apostles’ Creed does not say that the Church is an organization that helps us to believe in God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. No, we are called to believe in the Church with the same faith we believe in God …. Often it seems harder to believe in the Church than to believe in God. But whenever we separate our belief in God from our belief in the Church, we become unbelievers. God has given us the Church as the place where God becomes God-with-us.” - Henri Nouwen

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

An old proverb says “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” Do you agree? What are the parts of your life you’ve assumed need to be figured out “alone” rather than in community
Read Acts 2:37-41. In what ways is baptism a “naming ceremony?” Who is doing the naming? Who is receiving the name?
Read Acts 2:43-47 and John 13:35. If you were an outsider looking into the community in Acts, what would you notice? How do these things (even the ordinary ones!) serve as a sign that Jesus’ power is right now at work in the world?
Compare Ephesians 2:13-22; 5:25-29 and Revelation 21: 1-4. How does Jesus feel about the Church? What do these images of the Church communicate about Jesus posture toward his people? His plans for their future?
Read John 17:15-23. What should the Church’s posture be toward the unbelieving world? In what ways have you seen Christians or particular churches misrepresent or distort God’s character for outsiders?

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In this week's Large Group message, guest speaker RUF Area Coordinator Jason Little teaches us about Jesus's famous last prayer from John 17. In this prayer, we are invited to see the unseen reality that holds our lives together: that we are not our own, and that we are infinitely loved. In this prayer, we learn that we belong to the Father, not because of anything WE do, but because Jesus loves us.

Q. What is your only comfort in life and death?

A. That I am not my own but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood, and has set me free from all the power of the devil. He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, all things must work together for my salvation. Therefore, by His Holy Spirit He also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for Him. (Heidelberg Catechism, Question & Answer #1)

"If we do not belong to ourselves . . . we are not free to pursue whatever brings us the most personal fulfillment. We are not free to define our identity in any way we wish. We are not free to use people or creation as tools for our own ends. We are limited”-- Alan Noble

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We’re moving from the work of God the Father and God the Son— who plan and accomplish redemption (respectively), to the work of God the Spirit, who applies that redemption to God’s people.

In this passage from John we hear Jesus talk about his own project of redemption. Why Jesus is confident that his plans for redemption will not fail? He is confident not because of anything in us, because he knows what kind of Helper we have.

(This sermon contains a reading from the excellent children's book "HE PIRATE WHO TRIED TO CAPTURE THE MOON by Dennis Haseley)*

QUOTES:
“What are we are for in the first place? The fundamental answer…is that what we’re “here for” is to become genuine human beings, reflecting the God in whose image we’re made, and doing so in worship on the one hand and in mission, in its full and large sense, on the other; and that we do this not least by “following Jesus.” The way this works out is that it produces, through the work of the Holy Spirit, a transformation of character.”— N.T. Wright

“Every time we say, "I believe in the Holy Spirit," we mean that we believe there is a living God able and willing to enter human personality and change it.”— J.B. Phillips

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

John Stott said, “without the Holy Spirit, Christian discipleship would be impossible.” Do you agree or disagree? Why or why not?
Compare John 3:3-8, and Romans 8:9-11. How does someone get new life in Jesus? Can someone have forgiveness through Jesus but not “have” the Spirit?
Read John 14:15-21. What does Jesus say are some of the results of being “in” God through the Spirit? (See also Ephesians 1:13-14).
Read John 16:7-11. What are all the things the Spirit does? How does this take a burden off your shoulders?
Read John 14:18 How is feeling like “an orphan” the opposite of a life of faith?
Read John 14:15 & Romans 5:5. Where does obedience come from? Where does love for Jesus come from? How do these truths change the way you approach growth in holiness?

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The Apostles Creed is not in the Bible, but it summarizes the big story of the Bible--everything from Creation and Fall to Redemption and Restoration. In this week's sermon, we move from what Jesus has done (past tense) to the present and future tense— what Jesus is doing and will do in the future when he "returns to judge the living and the dead." Scripture teaches us that the present and future judgement of Jesus is good news. It is good news, because knowing the truth about his reign and his return helps us to rest in his wise and loving rule.

“I’ve finally figured out why I left [Church] services feeling spiritually unsatisfied as a child. I discovered more truth. But simple truth. Our God is a loving God. Yes. He's a merciful God. Yes. But he's even more so a God of DISCIPLINE. OBEDIENCE. A JEALOUS God. . .. I feel it's my calling to share the joy of God, but with exclamation, more so, the FEAR OF GOD. The balance. Knowing the power in what he can build, and also what he can destroy.” -- Kendrick Lamar

“My thesis is that the practice of non-violence requires a belief in divine vengeance…if God were not angry at injustice and deception and did not make a final end of violence, that God would not be worthy of our worship.”-- Miroslav Volf

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

“In our culture, judging evil is widely considered worse than doing evil.” Do you agree with this statement? What are the ways in which our culture has become more judgmental in the last few years?
Read Acts 1:6. What did the apostles want? When did they want it to happen?
Acts 1:7-8. What role did God give to them?
What is hard about “not knowing?” In what way is our waiting posture in this world like Jesus' posture? (see Matthew 16:24-27)
Read Psalm 96: 10-13. How does the Psalmist describe God’s judgement? Why would this be good news to a people who are suffering?
Do you think the presence of evil and suffering in the world makes it harder or easier to believe in Christianity? Why?
Read the quotes from Kendrick Lamar and Miroslav Volf. What rings true?

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The Apostles’ Creed is the oldest, and most widely accepted statement of faith in Christianity. It wasn’t written by the Apostles (Jesus’s companions) but it became accepted in the early centuries as a faithful summary of what the Apostles taught. In this week's sermon, we are looking the often misunderstood (and sometimes overlooked) part of the Creed which talks about Jesus' descent into the dead and resurrection from the grave. What we will see from this section of the Creed is that Jesus' victory over sin and death gives us a secure hope for human souls and human bodies.

“The resurrection introduces something radically new into the fabric of the universe and into our understanding of the possibilities and limit of our wold, transforming the Christians way of inhabiting reality … It is as significant as the creation of the universe, for it parallels that first creation with what the Bible calls the"new creation" (2 Cor 5:17) …The resurrection of Christ is not simply proof that there is life beyond death, nor again is it simply proof that the cross was effective and that all those who trust in Christ can have their sins forgiven. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the first glimpse of the shafts of breaking dawn that will one day flood the sky with brilliant light in the new heavens and the new earth.”- Christopher Watkin

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/christs-descent-dead/

https://rts.edu/resources/he-descended-into-hell/

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

When was the first time you encountered the reality of death? Think back to that time-- how did it make you feel? What questions did you have?
What are differences between the two words translated "hell' in the Gospels : "Gehenna" (Matthew 18:9) and "Hades" (Matthew 16:18)?
Read Acts 2: 24. Why was it not possible for Jesus to be held by death? (compare John 10:18, Hebrews 2:14, Revelation 1:17)
Read Acts 2: 36-37. According to Peter, who does the resurrection prove Jesus to be? What did that mean for his audience in Acts 2?
Read 1 Cor 15:12-19. What are all the things that are "in vain" if Jesus is not really risen?
Read 1 Cor 15: 20, Romans 13:11-14. According to Scripture, if Jesus has been raised, what difference should it make to your life?

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The Apostles’ Creed is the oldest, and most widely accepted statement of faith in Christianity. It wasn’t written by the Apostles (Jesus’s companions) but it became accepted in the early centuries as a faithful summary of what the Apostles taught. In this week's sermon, we are looking at Jesus's suffering and death on the cross, and what that accomplishes for us. As we examine the crucifixion we will see what theologians throughout history have called "the wonderful exchange"-- Jesus getting what we deserved, so that we can get what he deserved.

“We may dare assure ourselves that eternal life … is ours; and that the Kingdom of Heaven, into which He has already entered, can no more be cut off from us than from Him; again, that we cannot be condemned for our sins, from whose guilt He has absolved us, since He willed to take them upon Himself as if they were His own. . . . This is the wonderful exchange which, out of His measureless benevolence, He has made with us, that, by His descent to earth, He has prepared an ascent to heaven for us; that, by taking on our mortality, He has conferred His immortality upon us; that, accepting our weakness, He has strengthened us by His power; that, receiving our poverty unto Himself, He has transferred His wealth to us; that, taking the weight of our iniquity upon Himself (which oppressed us), He has clothed us with His righteousness.” –John Calvin

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Why do you think the Creed mentions that Jesus suffered “under Pontius Pilate”? How does this historical detail separate Christianity from ancient legends, myths or other world religions?
Read 1 Cor 1:18-23. How would the preaching of “Christ crucified” been heard by people in the early church?
Compare Rom 3:21-26 and 2 Cor 5:14-21. What is “the message of reconciliation” according to these two passages from Paul?
Read the quote from Calvin. Why can Christians be “assured” that eternal life is ours? Where do you see the “exchange” Calvin talks about in 2 Cor 5?
Read 2 Cor 5:14-21. What words does Paul use to describe believers in Jesus? Which ones jump out at you?
Read 2 Cor 5: 17-20. What does an ambassador do? What needs to change about the way you relate to your co-workers, co-students, and professors in order for you to more accurately represent the Kingdom of Christ. How can others pray and help you in this?

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The Apostles’ Creed is the oldest, and most widely accepted statement of faith in Christianity. It wasn’t written by the Apostles (Jesus’s companions) but it became accepted in the early centuries as a faithful summary of what the Apostles taught. In this week's sermon, we are continuing to learn about the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, and the way that his incarnation (taking on flesh and blood) enabled himself to fulfill his mission of restoring and rescuing the world. The scripture teaches us that the unique humanity of Jesus enables us to bring every part of our human experience to him both in prayer and in daily life.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

What have you heard (in church or outside of church) about the supernatural birth of Jesus? About Mary?
Read Matthew 1:25, 12:46-50, 13:55-57. Do you think Mary remained a virgin after Jesus’ conception and birth? Why or why not?
Read Luke 1: 38. How does Mary’s response to God’s announcement strike you? What do you think about God’s way of changing Mary & Joseph’s plans?
Read the passages from Hebrews 2 & 4 above. What aspect of Jesus’ priestly ministry (sympathy, sacrifice, help, mercy, confidence) do you feel most in need of?
How could the picture of Jesus in Hebrews change how you pray, and what you pray about?

“‘The child to be born will be called holy, the angel Gabriel told Mary.' The New Testament expresses the significance of this in a variety of ways. These safeguard us from a fairly common assumption Christians make, namely that Jesus' combination of divinity and perfect sanctity made life somehow easier for him . . . The truth is in many respects the very reverse. Swimming against the tide is never easier. Being spiritually sensitive makes this sinful world a much more painful place in which to live.” - Sinclair Ferguson & Derek Thomas, Ichthus

“When I pray, I am not praying to a philosophically complicated absentee creator. When I manage to pay attention to the continual love song, I am not trying to envisage the impossible-to-imagine domain beyond the universe. I do not picture kings, thrones, crystal pavements, or any of the possible cosmological updatings of these things. I look across, not up; I look into the world, not out or away. When I pray I see a face, a human face among other human faces. It is a face in an angry crowd, a crowd engorged by the confidence that it is doing the right thing, that it is being virtuous. The man in the middle of the crowd does not look virtuous. He looks tired and frightened and battered by the passions around him. But he is the crowd’s focus and center. The center of everything, in fact, because if you are a Christian you do not believe that the characteristic action of the God of everything is to mold the course of the universe powerfully from afar. For a Christian, the most essential thing God does in time, in all of human history, is to be that man in the crowd; a man under arrest, and on his way to our common catastrophe.”- Francis Spufford, Unapologetic

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The Apostles’ Creed is the oldest, and most widely accepted statement of faith in Christianity. It wasn’t written by the Apostles (Jesus’s companions) but it became accepted in the early centuries as a faithful summary of what the Apostles taught. In this week's sermon, we move from God the Father to looking at the person and work of Jesus, God the Son. We will see that the early church saw Jesus's servant posture as a model for how we are to relate to a hurting world. Our calling to follow the way of Jesus is a invitation to become servants of a saving, servant king.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

How do you feel about people in positions of power? Are you trusting or skeptical of them? What characteristics make a powerful person a trustworthy person?
What should the title “Christ” (Messiah) have meant to a waiting Jewish nation? What should it mean to us?
Read Luke 4;17-21. How do these words show what kind of king and kingdom Jesus brings? What do they saw about how God is choosing to use his kingly power?
Read Colossians 1:15-17. What does it mean that Jesus is the “firstborn”? Does this mean he is a created being, unlike God the Father (this is what some religious traditions teach)? How would you answer this, using v.16-17? (see also Hebrews 1:1-3 and John 1:14,18).
Read Phil 2:9-11 and the quotes below. What are some competing”lords”, like Caesar, that people are coerced into serving today? How does Jesus’s lordship conflict with these other claims to lordship?
Where are the places where you are impatient or annoyed with others? How can you move closer to those people to repair and renew these relationships?

QUOTES:

“The church faced a crisis when it was required to recite the formula “Kyros Kaisar” (“Caesar is Lord” ) in giving a loyalty oath to the emperor. The imperial title was filled with theological and religious connotations…. ’According to the ancient view, lordship over the world empire indicates lordship over the cosmos.’ Hence many Christians chose to die rather than utter the loyalty oath. This refusal to call Caesar “lord” did not come out of revolutionary civil disobedience, but from reluctance to render to Caesar that which did not properly belong to him. Absolute authority, dominion, and power belonged to Christ, who alone reigns as cosmic Lord.”— J.I. Packer

“From the earliest days of Christianity we find an astonishing shift, for which again nothing in Jewish traditions of the time had prepared Jesus’s followers … they said that he was the unique embodiment of the one God of Israel… that he was the one through whom all things were made, and through whom now all things were being remade…. And they said all this, not three or four centuries later …. at a point when it might conceivably have been socially or politically desirable to say it. They said it within a single generation. And they said it even though it was shocking to the religious sensibilities of both Jews and pagans. Moreover, they said it even though it meant a direct political confrontation with the claims of Rome. Caesar, after all, was “son of God”; he was “lord of the world”; his kingdom was all-powerful, and it was at his name that every knee already had to bow. The earliest Christian evaluation of Jesus as the place where heaven and earth met, the replacement for the Temple, the embodiment of the living God, was about as socially provocative, as well as theologically innovative, as it could possibly have been. And yet they said it.”— N.T. Wright

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The Creed starts where the Bible starts, by reminding us of our place God's created universe. We see that we are not the main character in our stories. God is! And we belong to him. We don’t get to define the purpose and destiny for ourselves. This week we’re going to look at how God reveals himself to us in Scripture, starting with the first person in the Trinity— who the Creed describes Almighty Father, Maker of Heaven and Earth. From Acts 17 (and elsewhere) we will see that because we are created beings made in the image of a loving Creator, we will flourish when we live within the limits set by his loving rule.

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/all-things-from-his-fatherly-hand/

QUOTES:

“Just because somebody uses the word God and then somebody else uses the word God, it does not follow that they mean the same thing. God, for some, is an inexpressible feeling, or it’s the unmoved cause at the beginning of the universe, or it’s a being full of transcendence. But we’re talking about the God of the Bible, and the God of the Bible is self-defined.”— D. A. Carson

“Belonging necessitates limits. The question is to whom we belong. If we belong to ourselves, then we set our own limits which means we have no limits except our own will. If we belong to God, then knowing and abiding by His limits enables us to live as we were created to live, as the humans He designed us to be. Christians must be particularly careful here. Accepting limits is not the same thing as accepting that you belong to God. It's possible to obey many of God's limits and still deny that you belong to Him . . . But if these limits are freely chosen, they're still fundamentally an expression of autonomy. And that's how one can so easily belong in the contemporary church and strictly follow Christian [moral] teachings while still being in absolute rebellion to the reality that you are not your own but belong to Christ. Christian ethics, like any morality, can be treated as a lifestyle option.” —Dr. Alan Noble

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

The Shorter Catechism defines God as “a Spirit Infinite, Eternal and Unchangeable in his Being, Wisdom, Power, Holiness, Justice and Truth.” Reflect on this. Which attribute of God do you find most comforting? Most challenging?
Read Acts 17: 29. J.I. Packer writes, “In the Bible the great divide is between those who believe in the Christian God and those who serve idols—“gods,” that is, whose images, whether metal or mental, do not square with the self-disclosure of the Creator.” What are some “gods”/versions of the God of the Bible that we find it easier to believe in? What parts of his revealed character are harder to accept? Why?
Compare Genesis 1:26-27 and James 3:8-10. How does the idea that we are made in the image of God impact the way we treat those we dislike or disagree with?
Compare Acts 17:26-28 and John 1:12. Are all people, regardless of their beliefs, children of God? Why or why not? (see also Galatians 4:4-7).
Read the quote from Alan Noble. Are you ever tempted to treat Christianity like a “lifestyle option?” Where in your life do you need to release control and give back ownership to God?
Read Matthew 10:29-31 and ask God for the ability to rest in his fatherly care.

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Think of the creed like the moon. The moon doesn’t produce light on its own, but because it reflects the sun's light, a full moon can shine quite a bit of light into a dark night. The creed, as a human document, doesn’t have the same infallible authority as the Bible has in itself. But the creeds brings the light of truth into our lives because it faithfully summarizes and reflect the authoritative message of the Bible.

This spring at our RUF Large Group, we’re going to look at the real, true story of everything that is laid out in the Bible and summarized as the essentials of faith in the Apostles’ Creed. In this message, we’re focusing on the phrase “I believe.” And we will see that biblical faith is not merely believing a set of facts about God, but a way of living in committed trust and relationship with God.

QUOTES:

"It is the offer and demand of the object that determines in each case what a faith-commitment involves. Thus, I show faith in my car by relying on it to get me places, and in my doctor by submitting to his treatment. And I show faith in God by bowing to his claim to rule and manage me; by receiving Jesus Christ, his Son, as my own Lord and Savior; and by relying on his promise to bless me here and hereafter. This is the meaning of response to the offer and demand of the God of the Creed".- JI Packer

"You may have a weak faith that you wish were stronger, but you have a strong Savior who could not be more powerful. If you are his, it is not because your trust never wavers but because his love never fails."- David Cassidy.

"When I am awake I can, in some degree, account for and study my dream . . . in the nightmare I could not have fitted in my waking experience. The waking world is judged more real because it can thus contain the dreaming world: the dreaming world is judged less real because it cannot contain the waking one. For the same reason I am certain that in passing from the scientific (secular) point of view to the theological, I have passed from dream to waking. Christian theology can fit in science, art, morality, and the sub-Christian religions. The scientific point of view cannot fit in any of these things, not even science itself. I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else."--C.S. Lewis

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

What are some everyday things you show faith in, even though you can’t see or fully understand how they work?
Read Hebrew 11:6. What difference would it make if the write had replaced the word "faith" with "knowledge"? Or "obedience"? How does the "faith" away of living both more restful and more challenging?
Read John 20:27-29. Sometimes people suggest that faith means the absence of doubt. How does the Bible present the relationship between doubt and faith? (see also Matt 28:17, Luke 22:32, Mark 9:24)
Read Ephesians 2:8-10. According to Paul, where does saving faith come from? What does this say about God? And about us?
JESUS + ________ = EVERYTHING. What do you tend to put in the blank?
Read the quote from pastor David Cassidy. What does it lead you to confess? Thank God for? Ask him for?

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This week we are finishing our Large Group series on Galatians! In this final section, the Apostle Paul closes his letter with a vivid description of the “good life” in Christian community, where both our identity and our ethics flow out of the gracious love of God. In v. 15, Paul uses an important phrase: “a new creation.” The new creation refers to God’s promise to re-make this created world in the last phase of redemptive history. This means that the Christian idea of the future is not just life after death, but LIFE after life after death, in a remade cosmos that lasts forever. But the new creation doesn’t come all at once. Scriptures speaks about an in-between period, called the "overlap of the ages" or the "last days" where we live now. In this final passage, Paul describes a few key elements to the good life as we live in this in-between time. The good life is the new creation being worked out in all those who belong to Jesus. The good life God has for us, is a life lived in community, under the loving rule of God.

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.” -Annie Dillard

“Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different than it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing into a heavenly creature or a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself.”―C.S. Lewis

“The kingdom [of God] exists as a world-within-a-world. It’s just out of view of ordinary life, accessible not by will or power but by God’s grace. The Spirit reveals it to us, and once we see it, we’re invited to be one of the crazy ones who give all they have in hopes of living in that hidden world. Paul uses the same word to describe the Christian life: “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col 3:3). There are layers of hiddenness—the kingdom hidden in a fallen world and our new life hidden with Christ.”— Mike Cosper

“What are we are for in the first place? The fundamental answer… is that what we’re “here for” is to become genuine human beings, reflecting the God in whose image we’re made, and doing so in worship on the one hand and in mission, in its full and large sense, on the other; and that we do this not least by “following Jesus.” The way this works out is that it produces, through the work of the Holy Spirit, a transformation of character." - N.T. Wright

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

How would your neighbors on campus (Christian and non-Christian) describe what “living the good life” looks like?
(v. 6-10) Why do you think Paul uses the metaphor of “sowing” to describe a life of doing good and helping others? What is challenging about this image? What is encouraging about it? How does Rom 13:11-14 show us what sowing means?
Why might faithful Christians be in danger “being deceived” or “growing weary”?
Compare v.11-18 with 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:21. What do you notice about Paul’s description of “the new creation?”
(v.14-15) What do you “boast” in? Where do you find your identity? What is more durable or desirable about the identity we receive from the gospel?

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As we continue our RUF Large Group series in Galatians, this weeks passage focuses in on the Gospel's effect on our relationships within the Christian community. In Galatians 5 and 6, Paul reminds us that God the Spirit not only saves us, He also empowers us for loving relationships with others. Practically, this means that God the Spirit changes us from a “your life for mine” life, to live a “my life for yours” life.

“Every time we say, "I believe in the Holy Spirit," we mean that we believe there is a living God able and willing to enter human personality and change it.”—J.B. Phillips

"I want you to be grateful that you're going through this sad moment with all these other folks. Because I promise you, there is something worse out there than being sad, and that is being alone and being sad. Ain't nobody in this room alone.”-Coach Ted Lasso

“For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ. He is altogether lovely. Such infinite majesty, and yet such meekness and grace, and all for sinners, even the chief! Live much in the smiles of God. Bask in his beams. Feel his all-seeing eye settled on you in love, and repose in his almighty arm.”- Robert Murray M’Cheyne

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Considering the context of 6:1-5, how would you define conceit? According to verse 26, what are the two possible effects of conceit on relationships?
Where do you sense a “hunger for honor” in your friendships, family or school life?
(v.26) Do you tend to be more “provoking” or “envying”? For example, do you pick arguments with people or completely avoid them? Do you speak down about groups of people or are you more often intimidated by certain kinds of people?
How would seeing yourself by the Spirit speaking through the Bible adjust the way you view yourself and others? What would change?
Compare 6:2 with 5:13-14. What is “the law of Christ”? What is “bearing burdens”? How does “bearing burdens” help define our relationship with others?
From the context of v.2 and v.5, explain why they are not contradictory. How does our view of ourselves (v.3-5) influence how we treat others (v.2)?
Is there a habitual sin you need to gently restore someone from? Are you willing to listen to others who seek to restore you?
Read 6:5. What is freeing about knowing that you will only have to answer for your own load, and not how you lived compared with others?

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In this week's passage from Galatians, the Apostle Paul begins to explain how salvation by grace through faith in Jesus produces real, lasting change in those whom Christ saves. And that real, lasting change, Paul says, comes not by external works, nor by mere willpower, but by the indwelling power of the third person of the trinity! In other words, the Christian life is a life that only the Spirit can enable us to live.

“Every time we say, "I believe in the Holy Spirit," we mean that we believe there is a living God able and willing to enter human personality and change it.”—J.B. Phillips

“First, we must understand that as long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value for us. Therefore, to share with us what he has received from the Father, he had to become ours and to dwell within us.”— John Calvin.

“Freedom is not being turned free to be whatever we want (i.e., egocentrism); nor is it some kind of "self-discovery" or "self-authentication" (that, too, is egocentrism); rather, it is being incorporated into the life of God, which he mediates to us through Christ and allows us to enjoy in the Spirit.”—Scot McKnight

“All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.”– Flannery O’Connor

“I know all about the despair of overcoming chronic temptations. It is not serious, provided self-offended petulance, annoyance at breaking records, impatience etc. don’t get the upper hand. No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each time. We all shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, and the clean clothes are in the airing cupboard. The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give it up. It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present in us; it is the very sign of His presence.” - C.S. Lewis

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Read the quote by Scot McKnight about freedom above. How does his definition conflict with the normal way we tend to think about freedom today? How does it relate with Galatians 5:13?
(v.19-21) Which of the works of the flesh do you notice in your life?
(v.21) Imagine a Christian friend of yours gets drunk one night, reads v.21, and is scared they’ve lost their salvation. How do you help them?
(v. 22-23) Where can you see the fruit of the Spirit growing in your life? How is this process changing you into who you want to be?
What are your natural traits which might be confused with spiritual fruit?
(v.24-25) How are you making efforts to “crucify” your self-centered desires? What habits and practices are helping you “keep in step” with Jesus ? Discuss with a friend practically what this might mean this week.

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In this week's passage from Galatians, the Apostle Paul moves from defense of the true gospel to application of that gospel. He argues that the freedom from condemnation and fear that Jesus gives necessarily leads those who come to faith in Christ to live lives of free obedience to God.

QUOTES:

“The great paradox of the Bible is that the commands of God make spacious places of our lives. They don’t limit our freedom so much as they make true freedom really possible.”—Jen Pollock Michel

“The gospel therefore neither leads us to live a guilty life (since God has lovingly accepted us), nor an unholy life (since the God who has accepted us is perfectly holy). To forget the first is to … lose our freedom; to forget the second is to… abuse our freedom. Both mean we lose grasp of the gospel.”- Tim Keller

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

(v. 1-2) Why does Paul seem to think that “faith plus our obedience” puts a burden of slavery on us?
(v.5) How much of a difference does the “certain future hope” of being accepted by God make to you right now? What can you do to meditate more on this hope?
(v.6) How does the Gospel change both the way you react to successes and failures? How does this change increase your ability to love God and others?
(v7-12) Where in your life do you need to stand up and root out false messages about God? How can your community in RUF help you with this?
Someone might argue that “because Christ has set us free from the law, we can now ignore God’s commands.” From v.14, how would you answer this?

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In this passage from Galatians 4, Paul closes his argument about freedom and slavery by making an analogy from the book of Genesis. As we follow Paul's logic, we see that gospel reverses the values of the world (and popular religious culture!)--the ‘able’ and the proud are out, the morally sick and sinful are welcomed in.

“Christians who are no longer sure that God loves and accepts them in Jesus, apart from their present spiritual achievements, are subconsciously radically insecure persons, much less secure than non-Christians, because of the constant bulletins they receive from their Christian environment about the holiness of God and the righteousness they are supposed to have. Their insecurity shows itself in pride, a fierce defensive assertion of their own righteousness and defensive criticism of others. They come naturally to hate other cultural styles and other races in order to bolster their own security and discharge their suppressed anger. They cling desperately to legal, pharisaical righteousness, but envy, jealousy and other branches on the tree of sin grow out of their fundamental insecurity.” — Richard Lovelace

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

(v.21) What does it mean to want to be “under the law?” How does it differ from obeying the law? (Compare with 4:4-5, and 5:16-20)
Read Gen. 16:1–4; 17:15–19; and 21:1–3. When God didn’t work according to Abraham’s timetable, Abraham decided to rely on himself to make God’s promises come true.

Have you ever done that? What did it do to your peace and trust in God? Right now, where are you tempted to take control of your hope and future away from God? 3. The residents of Jerusalem would regard Sarah as their mother and Hagar as the mother of the Gentiles. Why does Paul reverse things? How does this bolster his argument in 3:7 and 4:7-9? 4. Read Matthew 5:3–11. How do Jesus’s description of his blessed people compare with Paul’s analogy to Sarah and Abraham in Galatians? How does it compare with your expectations about what it feels like to follow Jesus? 5. (v. 27) Can you identify with Sarah (“the barren one”) in any way? if so, how does her story bring hope or comfort to you?

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“A person is a heart soul and strength complex designed for love, who really needs to flourish, to be recognized by other persons as a person, and whether or not we get that recognition is much of the drama of human life.”-- Andy Crouch

Our Western world has long emphasized knowledge—factual information and “proof”—over the process of being known by God and others. No wonder, then, that despite all our technological advancements and the proliferation of social media, we are more . . . isolated than ever. Yet it is only when we are known that we are positioned to become conduits of love. And it is love that transforms our minds, makes forgiveness possible, and weaves a community of disparate people into the tapestry of God’s family.” ― Dr. Curt Thompson

What matters supremely, therefore, is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it—the fact that he knows me. I am graven on the palms of his hands [Isa. 49:16]. I am never out of his mind. All my knowledge of him depends on his sustained initiative in knowing me. . . He knows me as a friend, one who loves me; and there is no moment when his eye is off me, or his attention distracted from me, and no moment, therefore, when his care falters. This is momentous knowledge. There is unspeakable comfort. . . There is tremendous relief in knowing that his love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench his determination to bless me. —J.I. Packer, Knowing God

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Read the quote from Andy Crouch above. How does your drive “to be recognized by other persons as a person” motivate you to do what you do? In what ways do human persons tend to fail at truly recognizing us?
(v.8-9.) An idol (a “not-god”) is any created thing we look to to give us something only God can give. We feel good when they work for us, and we feel crushed when they fail us. What are the good created things that you go to for meaning/identity/purpose? In what ways can religious activity or human moral effort serve as an idol?
1. Compare Matt. 7:21-23 & John 17:3, 20-26. What does knowing God mean, according to Jesus? What does it NOT mean?
2. (v. 11-20) How does Paul describe his experience in ministry? How is is different from the false teachers?
3. (v. 11, 19) Where are the places/people that need your “labor”? How can you embrace discomfort so that others can experience God’s welcoming love?
4. Read the quote from J.I. Packer above. How does remembering that God knows you (inside and out!) and still loves you, free you from the temptation to worship idols? How does it free you to love others?

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In this week's message from our series in Galatians, Paul continues his defense of the Gospel. He demonstrates that because Jesus died the death you should’ve died, you can enjoy the rights and privileges that he alone deserves. On the cross, Jesus was treated the way we deserved to be treated, so that all those who believe in Him could be treated as Jesus deserved to be treated: as beloved sons of God.

Since God is, before all things, a Father, and not primarily Creator or Ruler, all his ways are beautifully fatherly. It is not that this God ‘does’ being Father as a day-job, only to kick back in the evenings as plain old ‘God’. It is not that he has a nice blob of fatherly icing on top. He is Father. All the way down. Thus all that he does he does as Father. That is who he is. He creates as a Father and he rules as a Father; and that means the way he rules over creation is most unlike the way any other God would rule over creation" —Michael Reeves.

"If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all " —J.I. Packer

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

John Wesley, looking back on his life before his conversion (growing up in a Christian home) said, “I had even then the faith of a servant, though not that of a son.” How might having “the faith of a son” change your thoughts & habits?
(v. 27) In which area of life do you struggle to remember you are clothed/covered by Christ Jesus?
(v. 28-29) What barriers divide people on campus? How should the Church model a different way of living? What can you do to help model this?
(v. 5-6) Where can you ask the Spirit to develop your affections toward God ?
(v.7) What do you think will be most enjoyable about inheriting a renewed cosmos? What are you worried about missing out on in this life that you hope to enjoy in the next?

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At the beginning of Galatians chapter 3 we saw that way back in ancient History, God made an audacious promise to a man named Abram. The promise was that God would be with him, and he would bless him in such a way that the entire world would be blessed through Abram and through his descendants. This week, Paul continues to show from the Old Testament Scripture that because Christianity is fundamentally is about a promise, your security depends on what God has done for you, not what you do (or fail to do) for God.

“After God gave the promise to Abraham, he gave the law to Moses. Why? Simply because he had to make things worse before he could make them better. The law exposed sin, provoked sin, condemned sin. The purpose of the law was, as it were, to lift the lid off our human respectability and disclose what we are really like underneath – sinful, rebellious, guilty, under the judgment of God, and helpless to save ourselves. . . .

Not until the law has bruised and smitten us will we admit our need of the gospel to bind up our wounds. Not until the law has arrested and imprisoned us will we long for Christ to set us free. Not until the law has condemned and killed us will we call upon Christ for justification and life. Not until the law has driven us to despair of ourselves will we ever believe in Jesus. Not until the law has humbled us even to hell will we turn to the gospel to raise us to heaven.”—John Stott.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Read Gen 15:1-18. How do the details of God’s covenant ceremony with Abram encourage you?
When do you tend to fall into the belief that your own efforts at obedience make you more/less acceptable to God?
(v. 23-25) how does Paul explain that the law “leads a person to Christ?”
Read Matthew 5:17-22, & Romans 3:19-20. What do these verses say about the purpose of the Old Testament law? About our ability to be righteous (accepted) by them?
Read the quote from John Stott on the opposite page.
1. How does knowing the seriousness of God’s law increase your gratitude Jesus? How does it change your view of yourself?
2. Do you tend to think too much or too little about God’s law?

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In this week's message from our RUF Large Group series on Galatians, Paul begins to directly address the teaching that has tripped up the new Christians in Galatia. In the process, he reminds us that we make progress in our relationship with God in the same way we begin: by grace, through simple faith in Jesus Christ.

“God is a vast reservoir of blessing who supplies us abundantly. If we lose touch with the reality of God, we will live clumsily and badly. A wrong idea of reality leads to a wrong response to life. If we think God is stern and angry and despotic, we will live frightened. If we think that God is miserly and stingy, we will live feeling gypped. If we think that God is abstract and impersonal, we will live aimlessly and trivially. And how many people live that way—feeling scared, deprived, ignored and insignificant? . . . . The gospel teaches us that in every way God supplies—he overflows with blessing and salvation. In touch with that reality we live with a sense of abandonment and walk with a confident gaiety, freely trusting, freely hoping, freely loving. Paul wants us to stay in touch with that reality." - Eugene Peterson

“I cannot pray but I sin. I cannot hear or preach a sermon but I sin. I cannot give an alms or receive the sacrament but I sin. Nay, I cannot so much as confess my sins, but my very confessions are still aggravations of them. My repentance needs to be repented of, my tears need washing, and the very washing of my tears needs still to be washed over again with the blood of my Redeemer.” -William Beveridge

“Do you think I am trying to weave a spell? Perhaps I am; but remember your fairy tales. Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them, and you and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us for nearly a hundred years." - C.S. Lewis

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Why do you think Christians are called “believers” and not “doers”? Why then do we tend to evaluate people’s status with God based upon their actions? What would Paul say about this?
(v.3-6) If you asked Christians around campus how someone “stays” or “matures” in the faith, what do you think they would say?
Why does the idea that we grow by “obeying more and sinning less” sound plausible? How does that idea actually run contrary to the pattern for growth laid out in the Bible?
(v. 10-11) Have you experienced, or witnessed others experience, the psychological curse of living by human effort (the law)?
Think of a sin you regularly commit. What are you worshipping more than Jesus that causes you to disobey him? How might you replace that false savior with your true Savior next time you are tempted?

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In this week's message from our fall RUF Large Group series on Galatians, Paul argues that the freedom we have through Jesus is so good that it even extends to the ways we mess up after coming to faith. Our acceptance by God in Christ is not improved by our good deeds, nor is it undone by our disobedience. The gospel means that a Christian can fail, but not be a failure.

“As we sin daily, so he justifies daily, and we must daily go to him for it. Justification is an ever-running fountain, and therefore we cannot look to have all the water at once. “—William Fenner

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Read v. 11-14. What does Paul mean when he says Peter and the others were “not in step with the truth of the gospel?”
Review Acts 10. What were the truths here that Peter seemed to be afraid to stand up for in Antioch? Why were these truths so important to Paul and to the other leaders of the Gentile churches?
(v. 12) Are there others around you that you’re not extending friendship to because they’re not “like you?”What kind of false righteousness lies behind this attitude?
(v. 16-17) How does the acceptance we have in the gospel motivate you to change this behavior in ways that guilt cannot?
How would you explain the difference between being morally good and being a Christian, to someone who thinks being good makes them acceptable to God?

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In this week's large group message, Paul continues his autobiography. Paul argues that since we are fully accepted by God without anything “added” besides faith in Christ, then we should, without anything added besides faith in Christ, fully accept other Christians.

“The Gospel sets freedom at the very center of existence. It is not an extra, not an option, not a superstructure on a foundation of tradition and morality. [Freedom] is the foundation.” - Eugene Peterson

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Review Gal 1: 11-12. How does the passage above (2:1-10) illustrate Paul’s point that the source of his gospel message is God, not men?
In Gal 2:4, Paul describes the Christian life as “freedom in Christ.” What things does being accepted by God through faith in Jesus free us from?
What other things does our salvation free us up for? (Gal 2:9-10)
What are the good/proper/nice things that we tend to “add-on” to belief in Christ as an expectation for other Christians? How do these add-on’s limit others freedom and limit our fellowship with them?
Do you ever feel guilty or insecure in your relationship with God? What might this be telling you about how you view your acceptance with him?

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In this week's Large Group message, Guest preacher Rev. Jay Denton from Downtown Presbyterian Church teaches on Psalm 139. This Psalm beautifully contemplates the omniscience and omnipresence of God, not in the abstract, but in a way that is deeply personal. J. A. Motyer summarized its theme as “No escape and no regrets.” We hope you'll benefit from this sermon!

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Which descriptions of God in Psalm 139 jump out to you?
What characteristic of God is most important to you right now?
For which of the above questions (Who am I? Where are you, God? What are you doing, God?) do you most want to get an answer?
How does Psalm 139 (and Gospels description of Jesus) help you in the midst of your questions?
Where do you most need God to be with you? How can your friends join you in prayer to ask for this?

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In this weeks message from Galatians, we see Paul continuing his the introduction to his letter by reminding the Galatian Christians of his own story. In Paul's biography, he highlights both the dramatic change that occurred in his life, and the source of that transformation. This passage shows us that the good news of the Gospel gives us a more powerful motive for change than earning the approval of people or seeking to earn the approval of God. The Gospel transforms our lives, not by giving us tools to make us lovable, but by showing us that we are fully known and fully loved in Christ Jesus.

The key difference between a Pharisee and a believer in Jesus is inner-heart motivation. Pharisess are being good but out of a fear-fueled need to control God. They don't really trust him or love him. To them God is an exacting boss, not a loving Father. Christians have seen something that has transformed their hearts toward God so they can finally love and rest in the Father. -- Tim Keller

" 'It is plain that what happened on the Damascus road was no isolated mystical experience, no mere “flash” of insight or intellectual conviction, but a personal encounter, the beginning of a personal relationship which became the dominating passion of his life.' Religious experience for Paul is basically experience of union with Christ." -- F.F. Bruce (quoting James D.G. Dunn)

"Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm; but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.”-- T.S. Eliot

Discussion Questions:

Try to remember a time when you were declared ‘good enough.’ (In sports, school, or in a social setting). What did it feel like?
Now remember a time when you were declared ‘not good enough’— maybe you were left out socially, or didn’t make a certain grade or team in school. What did it feel like?
Compare v.10 & 14-16 with Philippians 3:4-10. Does Paul sound concerned about pleasing God? Where does he think the righteousness that pleases God comes from? How does someone “get” that righteousness? (Phil 3:9)?
What relationships in your life are based on performance? What (if any) of your relationships exist outside of performance?
When are you most tempted to fear people and seek their approval? What would change if in those moments you lived to please the God who is pleased with you?

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In this introductory passage from Galatians, we see Paul reaching out to his friends with both clarity and vulnerability. In this week's large group message, we are reminded that the Gospel is good news, not good advice-- and this seemingly small distinction makes all the difference in the world.

“For there is no middle ground between Christian righteousness and works- righteousness. There is no other alternative to Christian righteousness but works- righteousness; if you do not build your confidence on the work of Christ you must build your confidence on your own work.” --Martin Luther

"Many . . . churches functionally teach the idea that we are saved because of (the level of) our faith. But the gospel says that we are saved through our faith. The first approach really makes our performance the savior, and the second makes Christ’s performance the Savior." - Tim Keller

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

From this passage, how would you describe Paul’s tone?
What are some counterfeit “gospels” (promises of good news) you hear around you on a regular basis?
What are the key elements of the gospel from v. 3-5? Who is the “main character/hero” in the gospel story?
How do people “add to the gospel” today in ways that diminish its power? Have you seen this personally? If so, what effect did it have on you?
What is Paul’s attitude toward those who distort the gospel (vv.8-9)? How can we ensure that the message we’ve believed is “true?

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In this first message of the semester, we look at the picture of the Christian Life that Jesus himself gives in Matthew 11. In this passage, we learn that Jesus is calling his followers into a lifelong process of growing in grace. We hope you enjoy this episode!

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Q. What is your only comfort in life and in death?

A. That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death— to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.

“Covetousness whispers that we deserve what has been given to our neighbor. Contentment states plainly that God has given what is good.”— Jen Wilkin.

“What makes us discontented with our condition is the absurdly exaggerated idea we have of the happiness of others.”—Anonymous

In this final command God moves from our words, to the hidden thoughts and desires of our hearts. In this sermon, we look at the positive virtue of contentment, which stands behind the prohibition against coveting.

NOTE: Once again, we are sorry to say that we had technical difficulties in recording the sermon! This recording only has the first point and half of the second point of this sermon. We hope that what we have will bless and be helpful to you!

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Q. What is the aim of the ninth command?

A. “That I never give false testimony against anyone, twist no one’s words, not gossip or slander, nor join in condemning anyone rashly or without a hearing. Rather, in court and everywhere else, I should avoid lying and deceit of every kind; these are the very devices the devil uses, and they would call down on me God’s intense wrath. I should love the truth, speak it candidly, and openly acknowledge it. And I should do what I can to guard and advance my neighbor’s good name.” (Heidelberg Catechism, Q &A 112)

Proverbs 18:21 says “death and life are in the power of the tongue”. How do we use words to build up rather than tear down? How do we use our capacity for language in ways that creates community with God and our neighbors? Which ways of speaking destroy friendships and society? In this week's message from our Large Group meeting, we look at the Ninth Command from Exodus 20:16, guarding us against any speech that erodes truth or attacks God's image bearers.

*Note: Last week's sermon recording was unfortunately lost due to a technical error on our part! If you want to learn more about the 8th Command, check out this helpful blog post: https://rts.edu/resources/the-eighth-commandment-no-theft/

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"In our post-sexual-revolution culture, there seems to be wide agreement among young adults that sex is good and the more of it we have, the better . . . In this landscape, there is only one rule: Get consent from your partner beforehand . . . But the outcome is a world in which young people are both liberated and miserable. While college scandals and the #MeToo moment may have cemented a baseline rule for how to get into bed with someone without crossing legal lines, that hasn’t made the experience of dating and finding a partner simple or satisfying. Instead, the experience is often sad, unsettling, even traumatic."-- Christine Emba, Rethinking Sex

“Jesus is saying that [a person’s] sexuality is precious and valuable, that she has a sexual integrity to her which matters and should be honored by everyone else. He is saying that this sexual integrity is so precious that it must not be violated, even in the privacy of someone else’s mind . . . Jesus is showing us that our sexuality is far more precious than we might have realized, and that his teaching is actually a form of protection for it.”- Sam Allberry, Why Does God Care Who I Sleep With?

How do we steward our sexuality in a way that affirms our personhood and dignity? What voices do we listen to as we seek to navigate the different messages about sex in our world? In this week's message from our Large Group meeting, we look at the Seventh Command from Exodus 20:14, prohibiting adultery and promoting sexual holiness. In this command, God calls his people to a sexual ethic that cares for our neighbor and honors God.

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"We see, then, that the sixth commandment prohibits much more than just cold-blooded, premeditated murder. It prohibits killing or causing to be killed by direct action or inaction any legally innocent person.”- Kevin DeYoung, The Ten Commandments: What They Mean, Why They Matter, and Why We Should Obey Them

In this week's message from our Large Group meeting, we look at the Sixth Command from Exodus 20:13. In this command God requires us to preserve, protect and respect the life and dignity of every human person. Jesus' expanded interpretation of the command in Matthew 5 shows us that if we truly want to experience God's life-giving forgiveness, we first have to live under the full weight of God's law.

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"The fifth commandment is bigger than just saying, “Kids, take a bath when Mom and Dad tell you to take one.” Civilizations, societies, cultures, and countries do not flourish apart from social order, trust, and mutual respect. All of that is meant to be taught and imbibed in the incubator of the family. It’s not too much to say that loving your neighbor begins with listening to Mom and Dad."- Kevin DeYoung

"The parents’ duty is, in effect, to live out the gospel to the child: that is, to assure their children that they are loved and accepted and valued for who they are, not for who they ought to be, should have been, or might (if only they would try a little harder) become."- N.T. Wright

In this week's message from our Large Group meeting, we look at the Fifth Command from Exodus 20:12. This command teaches us that love of our neighbor begins by approaching our all diverse relationships with a posture of honor and care.

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“Sabbath is that ancient idea and practice of intentional rest that has long been discarded by much of the church and our world. Sabbath is not new. Sabbath is just new to us. Historically, Christians have kept some form or another of the Sabbath for some two thousand years. But it has largely been forgotten by the church, which has uncritically mimicked the rhythms of the industrial and success-obsessed West . . . The result of our Sabbath amnesia is that we have become perhaps the most emotionally exhausted, psychologically overworked, spiritually malnourished people in history.” - A.J. Swoboda

In this week's message from our Large Group meeting, we look at the Fourth Command from Exodus 20:8-11. This command instructs us to worship and enjoy God with our schedules, by embracing God's rhythms of Sabbath rest. (*Note: we used a new microphone so the audio is a little distorted at times. We are sorry for the poor audio quality, and hope the message is still helpful to you.)

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“In ancient writings like the Bible, a name was way more than a label . . . Your name was your identity, your destiny, the truth hidden in the marrow of your bones. It was a one-word moniker for the truest thing about you—your inner essence . . . Names are revelatory of the nature of a person.”— John Mark Comer, God Has a Name

In this weeks message, we look at the third command from Exodus 20:7. This command shows us God's design for our attitude and motive in worship. God intends for His people to live before Him with an attitude of loving reverence and respect for anything God uses to make himself known.

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“The most important aspect of our faith is not how hard we believe, but in whom we believe . . . we do want to be sincere and single-minded in our devotion—but to have a sincerely misguided belief in the wrong thing or in the wrong person is not saving faith at all. It’s possible to be full of sincere worship and worship the wrong God.”- Kevin DeYoung

In this weeks message, we look at the second command from Exodus 20:4-6. This passage teaches us that because we cannot truly love what you we not truly know, we need God to show us how to worship and serve him rightly.

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All relationships have rules. But the best and most secure relationships are the ones in which the rules are clear. And in all of life, rules don’t create relationship, they flow out of and and help maintain existing relationship. God’s rule of life for his people flows of a pre-existing relationship of rescue and redemption.

“And the more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.” - GK Chesterton

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This sermon is part 12 of our RUF Large Group Series on God's Covenants delivered in the Spring of 2020. (This RUF Large Group met over a zoom call during the COVID-19 Quarantine

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This sermon is part 11 of our RUF Large Group Series on God's Covenants delivered in the Spring of 2020. (This RUF Large Group met over a zoom call during the COVID-19 Quarantine).

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This sermon is part 10 of our RUF Large Group Series on God's Covenants delivered in the Spring of 2020. (This RUF Large Group met over a zoom call during the COVID-19 Quarantine).

RUF at UNCW: Recent Episodes

UNCW Reformed University Fellowship