Chapel at Cedarville

Redeemed and Restored: A Testimony of Grace

In her chapel message, Dr. Rosaria Butterfield shared the life-changing power of the Gospel through the lens of her own testimony. She reminded us that Jesus died on the cross to deliver people from all sin, and that His resurrection breaks the power of sin’s bondage.

She reflected on the moment she realized there truly is a God who created the universe and offers redemption to anyone who believes. “Jesus saved me from this sin,” she said, “so I’m rolling up my sleeves, because I have some work to do.” That work was not to earn God’s love, but to live out the reality of her justification, adoption, and sanctification.

Rosaria also emphasized that repentance is not a vague idea but a concrete, Spirit-led process. She described six key ingredients:

1. Recognize sin as sin — Do not rename or excuse it.
2. Experience sorrow for sin — “My sin put my Lord on the cross.”
3. Confess sin — Confess to God and to those we have wronged.
4. Experience shame for sin — Shame reveals the problem so Christ’s blood can cover it.
5. Hate sin — Learn to despise the sin itself rather than ourselves.
6. Turn from sin — Pray for new affections that cultivate godly desires (Ephesians 4:28).

Her story reminds us that repentance is both humbling and liberating. Rosaria’s testimony calls us to the hope that no matter our sin, the Gospel of Jesus Christ has the power to make us new. For additional content regarding her testimony and the reality of sin, refer to her books or website: https://rosariabutterfield.com/

What is your greatest longing, the thing you desire the most? What does that longing tell you about what you think your deepest need is?

We tend to believe we would be happy and fulfilled if only Jesus would give more to us: more friends, a better job, or whatever else we long for. Mark 2:1-12 challenges that by revealing our true, deepest need — what we really need in order to be filled with satisfaction and joy.

Saving Faith

In Mark 2, four men with a paralyzed friend hear that Jesus is in town. They become determined to do whatever it takes to bring their friend to Him for healing. They encounter an obstacle when they realize the house is too crowded to bring their friend in, but rather than giving up, they get creative and dig a hole in the roof. After much hard, sweaty work, they are finally able to lower the paralyzed man down through the hole to Jesus.

But surprisingly, healing this man was not the first thing Jesus did. When he looked down at the man, His first thought of compassion was not, “This man needs to walk.” Instead, it was, “This man needs a relationship with Me. He needs to understand that his wildest longing should be for Me.”

Jesus knew that the man’s greatest problem was not actually anything physical but something inward: his guilty standing before God. He gave him what he truly needed most, saying, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

Skeptical Faith

In the front row before Jesus were some scribes who had come as skeptics — not because they loved Jesus but because they wanted to criticize. They didn’t like how Jesus was speaking with such authority, and they accused Him of blasphemy in their hearts.

Jesus, knowing this, asked them which was easier: to say the man was forgiven from his sins, or to say he was healed from his paralysis. The scribes probably assumed it was easier to say his sins were forgiven, but in reality, only God can forgive sins.

When Jesus forgave the man’s inward sins, he showed that He is God. He then performed the amazing outward act of healing the man’s legs physically. We each must make up our minds about who we personally believe Jesus is. Either He is God or He’s not — there is no middle ground. And if He is God, we must live like it, talk like it, and commit our lives to it.

Our Response

Our response to this passage is fourfold:

• First, we must look to Jesus. He is the greatest gift.

• Second, we must long for Jesus above all else. Your greatest longing indicates your heart’s posture.

• Third, we must lean on Jesus with every need. Bring Him your deepest desires.

• And fourth, we must lead people to Jesus, no matter the cost! Let us be like the paralytic’s friends, who stopped at nothing to bring him to Christ.

In Exodus 3–4, God reveals Himself to Moses and shares who He is. In response, we are to bow in worship and submit to God’s call.

The Encounter with God

God reveals Himself to Moses through the burning bush, but mainly through words. Today, He reveals Himself to us through the words of the Bible. We encounter Him through Scripture.

Moses responds with fear and reverence. We shouldn’t have an unhealthy fear of God if we’re in a relationship with Him. However, we also must recognize that we can be far too flippant in our treatment of God. We should model the words of Psalm 2:11, which says, “Rejoice with trembling.” Do you rejoice at His grace and tremble at His holiness?

We have no good thing apart from God. Let us pray, asking Him to be our true longing and the satisfaction of our hearts, so that we will love Him above everything else! If we seek Him first, we will never be disappointed.

The Plan of God

God sees, hears, and knows the sufferings of the Israelites, and He decides to respond by freeing His people. This is all good for Moses, until he realizes God has purposed to use him to lead the way. He then protests desperately with all the excuses he can think of.

In response, God supplies His identity and His presence. He tells Moses, “Here is who I am, and I will be with you.” Has the identity and the presence of someone ever reassured you? We can live without fear because our self-existent, unchanging, all-sovereign God is with us.

We all have a task: to be a disciple that makes disciples. So many billions do not know Jesus. We need to slow down, confess our numbness to this truth, and ask God to break our hearts anew over the lostness of the nations.

Just like Moses, we sometimes feel the weight of inadequacy. We need to recognize that we are inadequate. On our own, we will never be able to do the task God gives us. But our gracious God supplies us with what we need and promises to be with us!

What are your excuses? What doubts hold you back? God doesn’t need you to be famous; He needs you to be faithful. He needs an army of loyal, anonymous Christians to carry out the task He has assigned to us.

The Proclamation of God’s Identity and Plan

After encountering God and worshipping, Moses proclaims who God is and what He is going to do. After we see and savor God, we also must tell others about Him. We should be people who can’t stop talking about what we love!

Any work for God and any proclamation of God must emerge from worship of God. When we make Him known, we are living a life that counts. May we be a bold, joy-filled army of faithful and unknown people who do all for the glory of God!

Chapel Recap: The Mission of God in Genesis 3

Today in chapel, SGA Chaplain Ethan Foster guided us through Genesis 3, helping us recognize the brokenness of the Fall, the powerful deception of Satan, and the hope of God’s mission to redeem His people.

In Genesis 3, we see the devastating results of the Fall. Shame enters when Adam and Eve hide from God (v.8). Where there was once intimacy, there is now shame. Blame follows as Adam accuses Eve and Eve accuses the serpent (vv.12–13), fracturing human relationships and leaving them broken. Finally, pain fills the world — both in daily struggles and in the reality of death (vv.16–19). Shame, blame, and pain now define life for humanity.

Foster also highlighted a critical pattern of how the deceiver lies: before the Fall, God declared Adam and Eve’s identity, but Satan sowed doubt about it. The same pattern reappeared in Matthew 3 and 4. God declared Jesus’ identity: “This is my Son.” But Satan immediately challenged that truth: “If you are the Son of God...” Unlike Adam and Eve, Jesus resisted temptation and passed the test perfectly.

Foster then applied the message to us. As believers, our identity is declared by God: We are “children of God” (1 John 3:1). Yet Satan still seeks to make us doubt who we are in so many ways. The difference between us and Adam is that we now live in the victory of Jesus, who overcame temptation and broke the curse of the Fall (Galatians 2:20).

Foster encouraged us to fight the lies of the enemy by:

1. Admitting we cannot do it on our own.
2. Looking to Christ, who perfectly passed the test.
3. Recognizing our secure identity in Him.

God’s mission is also revealed in Genesis 3. As from the very beginning, God had a plan. In Genesis 3:15, He promised that the Seed of the woman would crush the serpent. Jesus is that fulfillment.

Though shame, blame, and pain entered the world through sin, the mission of God is to undo the curse through Christ. Praise God for His victory.

Psalm 139 is a beautiful psalm that illustrates God’s intimate knowledge of each of His children. It tells us that God knows us, made us, and is with us. We are the result of God’s handiwork, fearfully and wonderfully made. You are the intended result of the mind of God.

In v. 19-24, David closes by looking at all the evil in the world. This is the hardest stanza in the psalm, but it is never wise to dismiss from the Bible things we find difficult or distasteful.

When a person’s world is full of God, they will long for the elimination of evil, as David does here. God is so precious to David that he cannot tolerate those who speak against Him. The revolt of the wicked is revolting to him. Below are four observations about the purpose and content of this passage:

A Prayer

First, we should notice that this stanza is a prayer, not just an observation. David directs his comments about evil to God Himself.

Not a Program

Next, we can notice that the passage is not describing a program for us to implement. In both the Old and New Testaments, vengefulness is expressly forbidden, and love for our enemies is an obligation. It is ultimately God’s job to serve justice, not ours.

In these verses, David is not driven by a hateful desire to get back at anyone; he is driven by zeal for God. David is God’s man, and a result, his enemies are not merely his own private enemies — they are God’s enemies.

David sees the true wickedness of evil, so he longs for it to be destroyed.

Our Problem

We have a problem: We are distinctly hesitant to pray like David does here. We find such confrontation distasteful.

This is because we are confused in our thinking. We fail to realize that judgment will fall upon evildoers, not upon abstract evil. We focus on John 3:16, which talks about God’s love and His gift of eternal life to all who believe. Yet we forget about John 3:36, which says that whoever does not obey the Son will not see life, because the wrath of God remains on him.

We recoil from God’s judgment because we are used to seeing evil, so we don’t recognize how wicked it truly is.

Our Posture

After calling on God to deal with the wicked, David submits himself to divine scrutiny and acknowledges that there is evil within his own heart, too. He honestly and humbly realizes he has the ability to deviate from the righteous course.

This must be our response, too. Seeds of appalling evil exist in all of our hearts. We must pray, asking God to search us, to know us, to check for grievous ways within us, and to lead us in the everlasting way. He is able to redeem us, cleanse us from our sin, and make our hearts His palace and royal throne.

Who Am I and Why Do I Matter? Chapel Recap on Psalm 139 With Alistair Begg.

Today in chapel, Alistair Begg opened with the questions, “Who am I, and why do I matter?” He turned to Psalm 139 for the answers, reminding us that our identity and worth are rooted in the God who knows us completely.

In verses 1–6, David reminds us that God truly knows us. Begg emphasized that the same God who formed the ear, the eye, and the mind is the God who hears, sees, and knows everything. God knows our movements and our thoughts even before they take form. There is no corner of our lives hidden from Him. As Alistair Begg put it, “I cannot hide anything from a God whose knowledge of me is so wonderful.” God is not distant — He is personal.

In verses 7–12, David shifts to explain that God is with us. We cannot outrun His presence, nor can we out-sin His grace. David discovered that the only true shelter is found in the God who goes before us and comes behind us. Begg then explains that learning that God knows us this personally is not a burden or a restriction but a privilege.

However, this truth collides with three of the biggest lies of our culture:

1. There is no Creator God.
2. There is no absolute morality.
3. There is no ultimate truth.

If those lies are true, then the question “Who am I?” has no clear answer. But Scripture reveals the truth.

David’s reflection in Psalm 139 and Begg’s challenges lead us back to where we must begin: God sees, God hears, and God knows. This reality draws us into hope, for the subtlety of sin lies in self-deception, but the security of faith lies in being fully known and fully loved by a personal God.

Following Christ is not easy. It can be incredibly difficult. In Luke 9, Jesus meets three men who, despite their good intentions, are not ready to follow Him.

Live a Life of Self-Denial

Jesus says that to follow Him, you must live a life of self-denial (vv. 57–58). This doesn’t just mean giving up your weekend plans for Him; it means giving up everything and making Him first in your life. It means cultivating a real relationship with God with the goal of knowing, loving, and enjoying Him. It means investing in others’ lives and discipling them.

Respond Immediately to Jesus

Jesus also says that to follow Him, you must respond immediately to His call (vv. 59–60). When the man asked Jesus to let him go and bury his father first, he was hiding his true hesitations in good intentions. Those hesitations were the problem, not his request. Following Jesus does not eliminate our good responsibilities; it reorders them under His lordship.

We must not let good and precious things keep us from following Jesus. We must not allow the safe and the comfortable to keep us from the mission. Christians are to drift towards need, not comfort.

We are also not to wait until it’s more convenient or until we feel spiritual enough. God is at work now. He has called us to Kingdom work, and that can’t wait.

Give Christ Your Full Devotion

Jesus also says that to follow Him, you must give Him your full devotion (vv. 61–62). The third man asked to say goodbye to his family because he was focused on what he would be leaving behind.

It’s impossible to be a disciple if you’re constantly longing for what you’ve left behind. It’s so easy to be distracted by the world’s alluring offers, but we are commanded not to love worldly things (1 John 2).

Take Heart!

After hearing how hard it is to follow Christ and how dramatically we all fall short, it’s easy to become discouraged, believing you’re a failure who will never be able to follow Him. But consider the disciples. They were so slow to understand, and yet Jesus stuck with them. He spent many long hours encouraging them, teaching them, and helping them.

Although we, too, are slow to understand and slow to obey, Christ stays with us long enough to teach us, change us, and use us. If you know your weaknesses and your frailties and still want Jesus, that’s a good thing. Jesus still wants you too.

Jesus is more than enough to take broken disciples, put them together, and push them in the right direction. His Gospel transforms us from the inside out. And at the end of the book of Matthew, He promises, “Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Interpreting Law and Sin Through a Biblical Lens

 Based on chapel notes from Dr. Christopher Yuan

When interpreting Old Testament laws, such as those in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, it’s important to understand the broader biblical context. There are two general approaches: the revisionist approach and the traditional approach.

Those with a revisionist view often argue that certain laws, especially those referring to the Holiness Code, do not apply to us today. This view may interpret terms like "abomination" as ritual impurity rather than a command for moral purity. In contrast, those with a traditional perspective might recognize that some laws — particularly those with penalties of death — highlight enduring moral truths rather than temporary ceremonial codes. Dr. Christopher Yuan’s resources, such as The Holy Sexuality Project video series or Holy Sexuality and the Gospel book, contain more information on these viewpoints.

Dr. Yuan always encourages interpreting Scripture through literary, historical, and canonical contexts. For instance, the Hebrew term to’evah (abomination) is also used in Proverbs to describe behaviors God finds morally detestable, not just ritually impure. This helps distinguish between cultural practices and universal moral commands.

One helpful guideline Dr. Yuan points out is to ask ourselves if a law is reaffirmed in the New Testament. When a New Testament author affirms an Old Testament law, it signals continued moral relevance. For example, Jesus reaffirms God’s design for sexuality and marriage in Mark 10:6–9, pointing back to Genesis. 

Furthermore, Dr. Yuan reminds us from Romans 6 that “the wages of sin is death,” a consequence we all face. This highlights the seriousness of all sin, not just particular behaviors. But the good news is clear: Through Christ’s blood and grace through faith, we are washed clean.

Interpreting Scripture faithfully requires careful study, humility, and a canon-centric lens. Sin separates us from God, but His mercy offers redemption to all who believe.

Many people in the world are involved daily in sexual sin. This can be an incredibly difficult sin to find freedom from, but through God, there is so much hope.

A Call to Holiness

In Leviticus 11:44, God commands us to “Be holy, for I am holy.” The opposite of every single sin is holiness. Change is not the absence of temptation; it is the Spirit-wrought ability to be holy even in the midst of those temptations.

The Biblical View vs. the Revisionist View

When trying to understand what God thinks about sexuality, we can go to several different sources for ideas: Scripture, reasoning, science, and our own experiences. These can all have helpful things to say. The problem is when we put them in the wrong order.

One view is the historical Christian (biblical) view of sexuality. This puts Scripture as the first and primary authority in our lives. Secondary to that is reasoning, logic, and scientific discoveries. Our experiences get third place.

But others hold a revisionist view, which switches the places of Scripture and experience. Those that hold this view think their experiences are the most important, while the Bible is the least important.

In order to form ideas that honor God, the Bible must be the first authority, not the last.

Studying the Context

To see what God really thinks of sexuality and sexual sin, we must use exegesis, which means getting the true meaning out of the text rather than inserting our own opinions and biases into it. When we read the Bible, our goal is to say, “What was God’s intent when He wrote this?” This includes looking at the context. There are three types of context we can study: literary, historical, and canonical.

Looking at the literary context means studying the verses and chapters around any passage of Scripture.

Studying historical context means asking questions like, “Who wrote this? When was it written?”

Finally, using canonical context means reading a passage in the light of the whole canon of Scripture — all 66 books. The Bible is one unified book tied together by the Holy Spirit, proclaiming one unified message: the Gospel that saves.

When we read Scripture in this way, we will discover that one passage will reference another. One book of the Bible will quote from or allude to another. In other words, we will discover that Scripture affirms Scripture.

Resources for Further Reference

Dr. Christopher Yuan has written several books that go much deeper into the topic of viewing sexuality in a biblical way. They include Out of a Far Country and Holy Sexuality and the Gospel: Sex, Desire, and Relationships Shaped by God’s Grand Story. He also offers a resource called The Holy Sexuality Project, which is a series of videos for parents and teens meant to teach them God’s view of sexuality and sexual sin.

The Way of Jesus: Chapel Reflections from Mark 1 With Dr. Thomas White

In this chapel service, Dr. Thomas White continued the Marked by Jesus series with a powerful message from Mark 1:14–45. His central theme was “This is the way!” While others pointed to the way, Jesus revealed that He Himself is the way.

Dr. White reminded us that Mark’s Gospel is written with urgency: “Mark is on a mission to the cross.” In this passage, Dr. White highlights five defining marks of Jesus’ ministry that reveal His identity and shape our response as His followers.

1. The Content of His Message (vv. 14–15)

Jesus centralized His ministry on proclaiming the Gospel of God: “Repent and believe in the gospel” (v. 15).

2. The Call to Action (vv. 16–20)

When Jesus called the disciples, His words were direct: “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men” (v. 17).  Therefore, following Jesus always requires action.

3. The Commanding Authority (vv. 21–28)

Crowds marveled at Jesus’ teaching because it carried an authority that even demons obeyed. Jesus wasn’t given authority; He is the authority.

4. The Commitment to His Mission (vv. 35–39)

Even at the height of His popularity with the crowds, Jesus withdrew to pray. He stayed focused on His mission: preaching the Gospel and moving forward to new towns. His communion with the Father anchored His commitment to the mission.

5. The Compassion of His Touch (vv. 29–34, 40–45)

Whether lifting Peter’s mother-in-law by the hand or cleansing a leper, Jesus revealed His deep compassion and miraculous power. Dr. White then drew a parallel between leprosy and sin: Both corrupt, isolate, and spread, but both can be cleansed by the grace of God.

From these five marks, Dr. White reminded us that our lives should mirror Jesus’ pattern.

Therefore, we must:

• Repent — Be faithful to the content of the Gospel and believe
• Respond — Follow the call to action and follow Jesus
• Reach — Commit to His mission of sharing the Gospel to all who need to hear it
• Rely — Follow Jesus’ example and pray to our Father
• Reveal — Show compassion by loving the least of our society