RUF at UNCW

"A Parable About Life-Maxxing" (Luke 12)

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 spring, we’re looking at the parables of Jesus in the New Testament book of Luke. How much is enough? In our world of abundance, it is easy to get distracted by the constant drive for self-improvement and life-optimization. Our restless inability to be content is deeper than a dopamine addiction or a lifestyle fad. It's a soul issue, something that the Church calls by a few different names— gluttony, greed, avarice, and the word Jesus uses here in Luke—covetousness. In this parable, Jesus wants to show us the futility and foolishness of hoarding all the fading feels of this present life. He tells this story, not to just shame us, or to scold us, but to warn us and persuade us to invest in what truly lasts. He wants us to rest in Him (not just in his benefits) and receive what the Apostle Paul calls "the life that is truly life" (1 Tim 6:19). Quotes:  “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” -Jim Elliot “Jesus warned, "Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions" (Luke 12:15). To live a life that consists in the abundance of possessions is inconsistent with abundant life. Perhaps the most sinister aspect of covetousness is the way that it keeps our eyes fixed on the horizontal plane.”- Jen Wilkin “I have held many things in my hands and I have lost them all. But whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess.” -Martin Luther "Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise [...] If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. ... Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same." - C. S. Lewis Q. 147. What are the duties required in the tenth commandment? A. The duties required in the tenth commandment are such a full contentment with our own condition and such a charitable orientation of our whole soul toward our neighbors, so that all of our inward motions and desires relating to them tend to, and work for, the support of everything of theirs which is good. Q. 148. What are the sins forbidden in the tenth commandment? A. The sins forbidden in the tenth commandment are discontent with our own state and envy and grief at the good state of our neighbors, together with all excessive feelings and desires for anything that is theirs. - Westminster Larger Catechism, Q. 147 & 148

"A Parable About Judgement" (Luke 19:11-27)

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 spring, we’re looking at the parables of Jesus in the New Testament book of Luke. In Luke 19 Jesus delivers one of his final parables, en route to Jerusalem, where he will be hailed as King (on Palm Sunday) then betrayed and murdered (Good Friday). And in the Parable of the Ten Minas, Jesus exposes our hidden roots of unbelief and fear that keep us from joyfully participating in the work of his kingdom.  That exposure, and the final evaluation of our thoughts and intentions is expressed in the Bible word "judgment." Judgement is central to the Bible, and for those who heed Scripture's warning to repent and rest in the finished work of Christ, judgement is actually good news. (*Thanks for Matt Howell, Ricky Jones and the folks quoted below for their insightful teaching on this topic!) Quotes: “While Jesus expounds God’s love and mercy again and again, he also hammers on God’s judgment more than any Old Testament prophet. And Jesus is clear: he is the one who will judge all humanity.”— Rebecca McLaughlin "Nothing would have been achieved if Jesus Christ had simply endured bodily death. It was necessary for him to feel the severity of God’s judgment, that he might step between and, by satisfying God’s wrath, somehow prevent it from falling upon us.” — John Calvin “We know that if there does exist an absolute goodness it must hate most of what we do. That is the terrible fix we are in. If the universe is not governed by an absolute goodness, then all our efforts are in the long run hopeless. But if it is, then we are making ourselves enemies to that goodness every day, and are not in the least likely to do any better tomorrow, and so our case is hopeless again. We cannot do without it. and we cannot do with it. God is the only comfort, He is also the supreme terror: the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from. He is our only possible­ ally, and we have made ourselves His enemies. Some people talk as if meeting the gaze of absolute goodness would be fun. They need to think again. They are still only playing with religion. Goodness is either the great safety or the great danger­ according to the way you react to it. And we have reacted the wrong way. "- C. S. Lewis Further Reading on God’s Wrath:  * https://www.crossway.org/articles/how-could-a-loving-god-send-people-to-hell/ [https://www.crossway.org/articles/how-could-a-loving-god-send-people-to-hell/] * https://bibleproject.com/videos/slow-to-anger/ [https://bibleproject.com/videos/slow-to-anger/] * https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/wrath-not-attribute-god/ [https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/wrath-not-attribute-god/]

"A Parable About Our Priorities" (Luke 14)

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 spring, we’re looking at the parables of Jesus in the New Testament book of Luke. In Luke 14, Jesus shows the religious leaders of his day, that by rejecting his message, they are keeping themselves out of God’s end-times kingdom banquet. Jesus wants them (and us) to see the how important it is to receive him as King, and how tragic it is to refuse or ignore him when he calls to us. QUOTES: “From time to time … I have noted that a particular parable is difficult to interpret, and have mentioned several ways the details of the story could be taken. That problem does not exist with [this] parable …. On the contrary, it is all too clear. It speaks of God's gracious invitation to us in the gospel and of the indifferent and arrogant way men and women sometimes respond to it …. The unique element in the parable before us is the willful refusal of those who were invited. It was not that they could not come. Rather, they would not.“ - James Montgomery Boice “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done”, and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” — C.S. Lewis “At it’s worst, it was a toxic, political club used to make others feel miserable and left out. At its best, it planned parties." —Pam Halpert (speaking about the Dunder Mifflin Party Planning Committee, and also, perhaps, about a Pharisee social gathering)

"A Parable About the Kingdom" (Luke 13)

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 spring, we’re looking at the parables of Jesus from the New Testament book of Luke. This week, we're beginning a mini-series on the "Kingdom parables" in Luke. The Kingdom of God is a central theme of Luke's gospel, and tonight Jesus shows us why the Kingdom of God is nothing less than the transforming rule of God that is breaking into the world, and why we should do whatever we can to believe in this coming Kingdom and receive it. Quote: "The number-one thing Jesus talked about is the kingdom of God. It’s everywhere in the Gospels and impossible to miss. But if the theme of the kingdom is so significant, then we need to make sure we know what it means. A good starting place is to have a solid working definition. Here’s one: The kingdom is God’s reign through God’s people over God’s place." -- Jeremy Treat (read his article here!) [https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/kingdom-god-8-words/] “What these two parables ask of their hearers, then, is confidence in the little gospel. The gospel goes out as seed, little but alive, and it comes back with big things like food, shade, and shelter for the nations. We will be tempted to distrust the little gospel we bear when we compare it with contemporary "powers." ….  But where are all the ancient faiths, philosophies, and forces that once vexed the church? … The church is an anvil that has worn out many hammers.” - F. Dale Bruner "Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed... Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.”- Henry David Thoreau

"Two Parables About Prayer " (Luke 11 & 18)

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 spring, we’re looking at the parables of Jesus from the New Testament book of Luke. This week we are looking at prayer-- a topic that, for many newer Christians, is like flossing or stretching. We all know its important, and yet nobody feels like they do it enough or are doing it well! Why do we struggle to pray? The reason we struggle to pray is that we struggle to trust God! Jesus knows this, and so he gives us these two parables to illustrate the incredible access and security we have when we come to God in prayer. When we really see the trustworthiness of our God, we will trust him with our troubles in prayer. QUOTES: “In prayer, we approach a loving, listening Father, and we are helped by the intercession of the Son and the groaning of the Spirit … When the Father promises to hear prayer, it is an assurance of his loving inclination to receive our prayer as acceptable and to answer it in his kindness. The Father’s desire to hear the prayers of his children is so radical that he says, “Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear” (Isa. 65:24). By the time we clear our throats, the Father is already listening.” - Megan Hill “The human condition teeters on the edge of disaster. Human beings are in trouble most of the time. Those who don’t know they are in trouble are in the worst trouble. Prayer is the language of the people who are in trouble and know it, and who believe or hope that God can get them out. As prayer is practiced, it moves into other levels and develops other forms, but trouble – being in the wrong, being in danger, realizing that the foes are too many for us to handle – is the basic provocation for prayer. Isaac Bashevis Singer once said, “I only pray when I am in trouble. But I am in trouble all the time, and so I pray all the time.”  -Eugene Peterson