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 going to talk about God sets us free to live wisely, beautifully in his world, redeeming all of our relationships. 

Last week we looked at how to relate to God himself– by placing ourselves under his loving Word, to be taught by Him. Tonight we look at the next central part of relating to God– receiving and resting in his forgiveness.

In a world where unforgiveness, shaming, and revenge are the norm, we are often tempted to edit ourselves and hide the less presentable parts of our lives. Instead of this image management, the psalmist wants to point us to a better way to relate: the freedom and security that comes from resting in the forgiving Redeemer. 

Psalm 130 reminds us that while we have a great need for forgiveness, we have an even greater forgiveness for our need!

QUOTES & LINKS:

• What is Biblical Forgiveness? (video)

• “The ubiquitous presence of revenge in contemporary culture makes the hope of forgiveness a startling wonder and a crying need ... Being able to forgive a deep wrong is both a choice and a gift. We can’t conjure forgiveness on our own. It’s just too hard. Getting even is our default. In the realm of revenge and forgiveness, psychology is of little help. Trying harder won’t get you there. The gospel uniquely provides the basis—and the power—to overcome our human inclination to return evil for evil”— Paula Rhinehart

• “There is always a cost to wrongdoing and it must fall on someone. Either the wrongdoer bears it or someone else must. This is true even if the wrong is not something that can be measured financially. The cost may be in reputation or relationship or health or something else. To forgive is to deny oneself revenge (Romans 12:17–21), to absorb the cost, to not exact repayment by inflicting on them the things they did to you in order to “even the score.” Therefore forgiveness is always expensive to the forgiver, but the benefits—at the very least within your heart, and at best in the restoration of relationship and a witness to the power of the gospel—outweigh the cost.” ― Tim Keller

• “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”… 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 

• “Relationships— [they're] easy to get into, hard to maintain.  Why are they so hard to maintain? Because it’s hard to keep up the lie! ‘Cause you can’t get nobody just being you. You got to lie to get somebody. You can’t get nobody looking like you look, acting like you act, sounding like you sound. When you meet somebody for the first time, you’re not meeting them. You’re meeting their representative!”— Chris Rock.