Pray with me. Our Father in Heaven, we've come back to have our sanity restored again because we've lost it and we need to be reminded. We need to be reminded that our lives are not resting upon the next test on whether we get into this group or that group, or on the responses of our friends or family, or on this relationship or that one. We need to be reminded. That our future lies in your hands. And that you love us. And there's nothing coming towards us today that you didn't see yesterday. And that you know us. And that you can be trusted. We need to hear from you tonight. We pray that you will come. and speak to us. Father, I'm less than worthless to stand here and determine what each of these students needs to hear and how to communicate it to them. But you can, and I believe that you will. Will you please come tonight and bless this teaching of your word. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Hi, my name's Ricky Jones. I want to welcome you to RUF. I'm glad you're here. We meet here every Thursday night at 745-ish. Ladies and gentlemen, Ryan Swindell. Ryan Hunter really wanted you to come. He was going to be sad if you didn't make it. He wanted to introduce you. What a shock, Swindell's late. Okay, we meet here every Thursday night at 745. We used to meet after Friends, but now we meet after Joey. You know, because we are always changing to meet your needs. If you will look on the aisles, there are sign-up clipboards, if you'll pass those down. We pretty much got our database complete, so we really need you to sign it If you're not getting our emails and you want to, and we send out some pretty fly emails, if I say so myself. So if you're not getting those, that probably means we had your address on there wrong. If you're getting them and you don't want to, send us a nasty message about taking them off, your name off. And if this is your first time, please sign in. So we can tell your mother that you made it when she calls me. We have been looking, somebody got a fan over here who laughed. We've been looking at Ephesians this semester, if this is your first time. We've been studying for the last five weeks God's grace to us and how it affects us, how it comes to us, how it is unearned, how it overwhelms our sin, how it raises us from the dead, how it is sacrificial, how it brings hope and joy and life. And that's been fun, and I've enjoyed having y'all. This is the week when everything kind of changes, when we kind of get to the great big therefore at the end of the text. And the rest of Ephesians is a big therefore. And Paul begins to tell us how this grace should work itself out in our life, how it's going to affect our life, what we should look like based upon this grace. And that will begin in verse 11. Chapter 2. Please read with me. See, I told you it was there, right? Therefore, remember that formerly you who were Gentiles by birth and called uncircumcised by those who called themselves the circumcision, that done in the body by the hands of men, and just remember, You know, you're not a. Bible school graduate, that's basically the modern day equivalent of baptism, the Washington, you can think of the Washington, the unwashed or the the Christian and the unchristian, if you don't understand the language about circumcision. Remember that that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of promise without hope. and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ, for he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace. And it is one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who are far away and peace to those who are near. For through him, we both have access to the Father by one spirit. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens of God's people and members of God's household built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. with Christ Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone. In Him, the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in Him, you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit." May the Lord bless the reading and the teaching of His Word to our hearts. I had a professor in seminary, I had a lot of professors in seminary, But one in particular who was a lot of fun, very intelligent, Dr. Douglas Kelly. Dr. Kelly was from South Carolina, had a great accent. He was told one time that if you ever wanted to be accepted in the scholarly circle, he was brilliant, okay? He has degrees in three or four different countries in America, Scotland, France, and Germany. And one of his teachers, one of his students wanted to ask him, I said, where did you go to school in France, Dr. Kelly? I went to the Sorbonne. I didn't know they taught classes in English at the Sorbonne. They don't. I taught them French, which is hilarious. I was like, yeah, of course they don't teach classes in English there. But he has this real funny southern accent, and he's a great guy. And I'm not going to go off on him right now. But he would always have us into his office to just kind of have lunch together once a week and ask him any question we wanted to. And one day we asked him, What was the topic that you've gotten the most flack over? When have people gotten the most angry at you in your church? And you say, that's funny, you know, one of the best pieces of advice I ever got was you need to always have two doors to your sanctuary, so if they don't want to talk to you, they can get out the back. He said, you know, we're all thinking it's going to be election, or predestination, or salvation by Christ alone, or some of those bad things that people really get angry about. And he said, People got mad when I taught Genesis 1. Genesis 1? Why? He said, I don't know. But he was a strong creationist, as most people who believe the Bible are, and he said, I think it had something to do... I can't do his voice anymore. I think it had something to do with the assumption that the Bible actually has something practical to say to life. that people are okay with God as long as He's kind of up there making you feel warm and fuzzy. But when you really begin to talk about God being able to affect the world, that makes them mad. And that really holds out in the Apostle Paul's life. If you'll read Acts sometime, which I recommend reading the entire Bible, if you'll read Acts, it's really interesting. Paul goes into every city and he teaches the gospel and people are like, whatever. You know, and maybe he's debating and they'll come and listen to him. But when it starts to have an application, you know, in Ephesus, he's teaching the gospel, people are coming to hear it, nobody cares. But all of a sudden people start getting converted. Nobody cares. But when these people who are converted stopped buying the idols, the silver idols that the silversmiths made, and so it started affecting their pocketbooks, there was a riot. And it was such a riot, they went and they got three of the men who were with Paul, and they took him into the Colosseum, surrounded by 3,000 screaming people. And they put him down in the middle, and they called upon them to give a testimony for what was happening. But the second they opened their mouths, the 3,000 people started screaming, Artemis is great. And they just screamed it nonstop for two hours in unison. The Apostle Paul then went to Macedonia. And he's teaching the gospel, people getting converted, teaching all the doctrinal stuff, nobody cares. But then all of a sudden, this sorcerer girl, she was a slave, she told people's fortunes, and people paid money to get their fortunes told. People still pay money to get their fortunes told. But when she was converted and Paul cast this demon out of her that wasn't allowing her to tell fortunes, all of a sudden she wasn't making money for the slave owners anymore. And there was a riot. And they threw Paul out of town. He had to escape. They tried to stone him. Isn't that interesting? When it starts to get practical, Paul went to Jerusalem, right? And he's teaching that Judaism isn't the way anymore. And you'd think that would be the thing that would get them all stirred up, and nobody really seemed to care. But there was just a rumor that he had brought a Greek into the temple. And just that rumor was enough, because they knew what he had taught right here. They knew what he had been teaching, that there's no longer Jew or Greek. And when they heard he brought a Greek into the temple, they went and got him, and they beat him, and they threw him in jail. Isn't that interesting? And that's interesting, I'm telling y'all this, because, you know, y'all have hung in there with me, and I'm really proud of you. We went through that, you know, everybody I talked to about what I was studying this year, you know, Ephesians, we're going to go through Ephesians 1 the first night, because that's kind of where Ephesians starts. You're going to teach on election and pre-destination the first night? Yeah, that's not going to be a big deal. You know, if y'all didn't care, y'all are back. We went through salvation by grace, and I hope it was helpful, and y'all hung in there and y'all came back. I just want to know, y'all know I've really enjoyed having you. Let's get to the therefore. And I figure, let's just make everybody mad the first night, you know? Because this is a text, if it doesn't make you mad, you're probably not listening. Paul has the audacity here to say that if the Gospel is true, and let's admit, Christians in our decade, in our generation, in the last century and a half, have lived as though it's not. We owe non-Christians an apology. We haven't carried this out. But if this Gospel is true, then it will affect the things you hold most dear, and it will change who you spend time with and who you love and how you make those decisions. The first thing I want you to see is that without Christ, you have no family and you have no hope. He says, without Christ, you're alienated. He says, remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, that's those who are unwashed outside the church, He says in verse 12, remember that you are separated from Christ and alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise. He says, remember, you were alone and you were vulnerable. You were outside of the covenant. You were on the outside looking in. And because of that, you felt your vulnerability. There's something about just being human that makes us feel vulnerable. You know, I have a lot of children. You'll figure that out by now. I've got plenty. If you need one, let me know. But we didn't teach any of them. We didn't tell any of them, now, if the closet door is open while you're in bed, be afraid of it. We never once said, don't go to sleep if the closet door is open. We didn't have to, but you know, they learned that lesson somehow. Maybe you told them. I don't know. Maybe that monster's ink, it ruined it for them. But they just know. They're afraid. There's this big open cavity over there. Something could come out of it. There's nothing in it but shoes, son. Close that door, daddy. They're afraid. We feel that vulnerability. We feel that insecurity. That we need something. We need protection. It's interesting. And we feel that insecurity all around us. So what we do, we reach for our teddy bear. And you know what your teddy bear is? Your cell phone. It's so funny. Campus ministers, we were talking this morning, all the university campus ministers, we were meeting this morning and we were talking about orientation and how funny it was. And orientation, we're in the orientation fair on the big drill field, and everybody comes streaming out of those classrooms and start looking around, they realize they don't see anybody they know, and you feel insecure. So what did every one of you do? You called somebody you knew. If I got that cell phone up to my ear, it's okay that I'm alone. I mean, sometimes I just put mine up to my ear because I don't want to talk to y'all. Now, if I got that cell phone up, I can ignore you all I want. That's our teddy bear. What's the real security? The security is obviously not that little piece of metal, but it's that community that I got somebody to talk to. You don't have to throw your cell phone down. And we all tend to gravitate towards people who make us feel secure, who are like us. That's the main thing. We gravitate towards people who are like us. Basically, the guys on this campus didn't have two kinds of tights, and the girls didn't have two kinds of tights. The guys on this campus tend towards finding security around their toughness. You know, kind of Southern, you know, I'm tough, I don't move the edges of my lips when I talk kind of thing. I don't want nothing affecting me. And come on, that's the way y'all talk. You can't laugh at yourself, and who can you laugh at? Or we find security in absolutely ignoring life and just living for the next party. The next football game, which we're not that optimistic about anymore. The next basketball season. The next party. We're going to put all our attention on that. And we'll forget about my life. It wasn't last weekend fun, and is it next weekend going to be better? And the girls, tend to gravitate more towards finding security in their appearances. And that's something very interesting to me, because I find no security in my appearance. What a shock. And Dominique, our old intern, told me about it. She told me about growing up when she was a little girl and she'd come back home from school and she'd have her feelings hurt. And her mom would say, oh, honey, it's OK. You're prettier than them. Some of you grew up with that. Or they tend to gravitate towards achievement, accomplishing a lot. Some guys are in that boat too, but more girls it seems. And as long as I'm accomplishing a lot, I'm okay. And we have to be around people who are doing that. And the achievement, there's kind of the scholarly achievement, and then there's the Christian achievement. Going to Bible clubs, or going to seven Bible studies a week. I must be doing okay because I'm going to seven Bible studies a week. But we all tend towards those things because we're insecure and we're vulnerable, and we're looking for something to show us that we're alright. And we surround ourselves with people. The problem is that without Christ, all those things are doomed to fail. Every one of them will fail. I don't care how pretty you are, you're looking towards a day when you're not going to be pretty in a worldly, external fashion anymore. I don't care how much you achieve, all you're going to do about your achievement is get yourself on a higher stage so that you'll get more responsibility and a bigger opportunity to fail and a further way to fall. I don't care how many parties you go to, you've still got to deal with a hangover and the world's still going to be here when you wake up. And I don't care how tough you are, you're still going to die. In the words of Cool Hand Luke, if you can't quote Cool Hand Luke, who can you quote? Nobody gets out of this life alive. And think about that one, huh? My wife watches intelligent things on TV. I play Bionicle on the computer in the back room. She watched this PBS show about Sigmund Freud last night, Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis. And in trying to give this kind of eulogy, right, this compliment to Freud, it was said, that he remained stubborn and he remained defiant and rebellious until his death. And you know what that got him? Dead. It was still waiting on him. All those idols fail. Ultimately, that cell phone doesn't give us any security. There's got to be something more. There's got to be something more. And we know that. Inherently, we know that. And we're told what it is in verses 14 through 18, that Christ reconciles us to God and He brings harmony and He brings hope. It says, For He Himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing the law of commandments and ordinances, that He might create in Himself one new man in place of the two, still making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross. therefore killing the hostility. He came and preached peace to you who are far off and peace to those who are near, for through Him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father." So what is he saying? He's saying we were separate. There were those who found their security in their religious achievement, their circumcision, their being baptized, their being washed. There were those of you who found your security in other things outside of the church. And ultimately, what Christ has done is He's reconciled both groups to Himself. And in reconciling both groups to Himself, He's reconciled both groups to each other. Understand that. He's saying He's made both of them to become one with Christ, the chief cornerstone. And since we're one with Christ, we're one with each other. Understand the order. First of all, He's made us one with Christ. How has He done that? He's brought us into intimacy with God. He's erased the sin, the things that God had against us. He's taking it away. He's not just taking away your guilty feelings. It's not just your guilty feelings that's kept you away from Jesus. He's erased your guilt. That's much more important. You know, if you go to traffic court, it's funny, I went in, I had to see Thomas Bourgeois today, the assistant dean of students or whatever he is. And outside the door were all these people with their little traffic tickets, you know, they're going to appeal their tickets. And every one of them is like, I don't feel guilty. And Thomas doesn't care if you feel guilty or not. Are you guilty? And Jesus isn't particularly interested at first with whether or not you feel guilty before God. Because some of you feel guilty and you're not guilty. Jesus has erased your guilt. And some of you feel fine. And you still have your guilt on you. God, Jesus takes that away. He takes it away in His own flesh. He has paid our debt and He brings us into relationship with the Father. How does He do that? Because we have intimacy with the Son. If you have intimacy with the Son, you have intimacy with the Father. I remember, you've got to understand where I come from. Championship wrestling was a big part of my life. And in the days when I was growing up, I mean, I grew up watching Andy Kaufman, Jimmy Hart, and, you know, Jerry the King Lawler, and our favorites, all of our favorites was handsome Jimmy Vagin. And I remember one day I was over at my best friend's house, I spent the night, and his dad came home from work on Friday night, and his dad was a mamma. I mean, he was enormous, and he had this deep, just booming voice. We were in high school. We had been at a football game, and you could hear this guy just above the crowd. My friend hated it. Everybody knows exactly what his dad thought of the play. But I remember just hearing that booming voice coming in this little house, Ha! Handsome Jimmy Bass! And my best friend, his son, all of a sudden just went and jumped on their dad. And he just started throwing him around the house, you know. And I'm just petrified. And all of a sudden, he just picks me up, like he throws me on the couch, and I jump up on the couch, and I jump up on his head, and I get him in a headlock, and it's not affecting him at all, right? Because I'm like 7 pounds, 6'7", 700. And I'm just, you know, nooky on that head, messing that hair up, just thinking, what am I doing? But I had been brought into intimacy with his father, because I knew the son. And that's what God Himself does. He gives us His Son to bring us into that kind of intimacy so we're not afraid anymore. If you still think fearful thoughts when you think of God, you're confused. God shouldn't scare you anymore. The world should scare you. There's scary stuff out there. God isn't scary anymore. What does 1 John 4 say? It says, In this way love is made complete among us. So that we will have confidence on the day of judgment. Because in this world we are like Him, there is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. And because we have no fear, and because we have that intimacy, we have hope. We have hope. Because now we have a security that can't be moved. Now our security is in something much deeper than how we look. or in what we achieve, or in how tough we are, or in how good the party was. Now it's our security is in the hands that formed the heavens and the earth. And it will not be moved. And it will not be shaken. And sometimes that seems hard to get your mind around. What does it mean? It doesn't mean bad things don't touch us anymore. But it means those bad things can't really get to us. They don't get to my soul. They can touch my body, but you can't get to me. You know why I used to have bad thoughts in sixth grade? Because in sixth grade, you dared to be excited to see somebody one time. And they just looked at you like you were nothing. And you were embarrassed. And in sixth grade, You believe that somebody looked into your soul and told you you were worthless. What I want you to know is the Bible promises that God keeps our soul. And that nobody can touch you. They can't touch you. And the worst they can do to us is send us home to our father sooner. Psalm 121 says, the Lord will keep you from all evil. He will keep your soul. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore. We can't be touched. And what we know is that whatever touches us is passing through hands that love us. And through hands that have the scars of nails on them. And hands that know what it feels like to hurt. And those hands protect us. So we're secure. We're secure. And as a result of having that security in something that is outside of us, having that security in God Himself, we can let go of our security blanket. We don't have to only find people who are like us anymore. We are free to take that wall down. The walls between us fall down. What does it say in verses 19 through 22? So then you're no longer strangers and aliens, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone. in whom the whole structure being joined together grows to a holy temple in the Lord." He talks earlier about the walls between us coming down, and that's a very vivid picture in his mind, because in Jerusalem, in the temple, there was a gate, or the courtyard, that Gentiles could walk into. And all along the wall, there was a 54-inch wall, which would be, I'm 60 inches tall, I'm 70 inches tall, so it would be right here. All along this wall, there were signs, they were so far. It said, any Gentile going past this wall will be responsible for his own death. Hey, how you doing? Think they were serious? He's saying the wall has fallen down. We don't need those walls anymore. As believers in Christ, if this is your unity, if this is your intimacy, And you've got a greater intimacy with other believers than you do with anybody else. See, the problem with the church is we tend to live like scuba divers. Or better images of the old, you ever seen pictures of old scuba divers? Where they just have this huge kind of cage looking outfit and a little hose coming out of the top of their helmet that went to the surface? That's kind of the way we live. Like this hose goes to God. And all the other Christians, they got their hoses to God. And if somebody's hose snaps and they drown, that's really too bad for them. But, you know, this guy stinks to be you, but I'm OK. And that's not what the Bible pictures at all. The Bible pictures this as being one body. And if you hurt, I hurt. When my toe hurts, I hurt. I don't think, man, it really stinks to be my toe. It hurts. I hurt. And that's the way we are. If we're joined together with Christ, we're one body. You're joined together with everybody who's with us. What does that mean? What does that mean? Let's just talk about some of the walls we have between us in the time we have left, shall we? Denominational walls. Denominational walls. Why are these walls so thick? The denominations are important to us because they justify us. We don't believe that we're justified by Christ. We don't believe we are saved by Christ and find our identity in Christ. We believe that we find our identity, that we are valuable because we're right. And if I'm right, then you're necessarily right. Wrong. Good. Those of you who said wrong. And so everybody else, you failed. And so it's vital to me, my denomination. It's not the church, it's not Jesus, it's my denomination. And that's been an extremely big deal in my little denomination, the Presbyterians, right? Because we're smaller. In every single town you go to, if you want to find the Presbyterian church, go downtown, drive around the square, find the smallest one, that's ours. And we've tended to justify that by saying, well, we're the smallest because we're right. And all those other people, they just can't handle the truth. It's a stupid thing to say. You want to know, if you're Presbyterian and you have a small man's disease, like I do, let me tell you why you're the smallest church in town. It's because in the 19th century, the Presbyterian Church did no evangelism. And the Baptists went and evangelized the entire country. And the Presbyterians just kind of stayed in Charlotte and South Carolina and North Carolina and just went, you know, as soon as they get those roads built, we're on our way. It's the truth. It's the historical truth. OK? It has nothing to do with them not being able to handle the truth. That's just dumb. OK? But it becomes our justification. And you've got to let that go. If you're in Christ, you're justified by Jesus, not by the five points of Calvinism, not by the Westminster Confession, all of which I happen to believe. If you don't, I'm cool with that. I'm not saying we're both right. I'm just saying I'm cool with it. I'm probably wrong. You know what? My theology teaches me I'm wrong on something. But let me explain something else to you. There's true unity, and then there's external unity. I got no problem with true unity. I meet every Thursday morning with Michael Ball and Hugh Griffith, and I wish y'all were more like Hugh. He's my hero. And Marlo Lemke, the Lutheran minister that y'all don't know, who I really hope I grow up to be like one day. And Paul Meyer and Fran Lavelle. And we pray together and we have great unity. And they're my best friends in this town. And I tell them things I wouldn't tell you. And we are truly united. And you know what? If they show up at church and I'm ministering to Lord Suffer, I'm going to give them the body of Christ. And I can't be more united with them than that. That's true unity. And if you don't have that, if you really think you're better than somebody because you're Baptist and they're not, or because you're Presbyterian and they're not, then you got real issues you need to pray over. You need to repent of that. It's wrong. But guys, we don't have to all go to church in the same building. There's not a building in Starkville big enough, and I don't really do big churches. That's external unity. You know, we don't have to melt our Denominations down, so we're not going to do anything that anybody else wouldn't do. We're going to have a big one schmaltzy kind of new age type service. We don't have to do that. You know, Michael Ball can go be Baptist and I'm going to love him all the more. And I can be Presbyterian and he's going to love me all the more. If you didn't know that we were Presbyterian ministry, it's cool, you can still come. We don't have to have external unity. We love each other. Denomination of unity. racial unity. If you don't think it's still a problem, then, you know, wake up. I've got a dear friend who pastored in South Mississippi for years and he was asked to leave his church over a baptizing a young black man. It is still a problem. Why is it a problem? Same reason everything becomes a problem, because it was the only source of security the white people had in the South after the war between the states was that they were white. The only thing they had going for them, read William Faulkner, learn something from him. He will teach you this. The only thing that white people had going for them, they were decimated completely, financially, socially, educationally. Everything was taken away from them. The only thing they had left was, well, at least we're not black. And so they made their security from oppressing people. That's why the poor, the further you went down the social scale in the white community, the worse, the more racist they were. And the only thing they had was oppression. I can't elevate myself, but I can push somebody else down. Now, I know that you think that's a thing of the past, but you need to understand something. We live with that. It's still very much a living thing. It's very much part of the institutions you grow up around. And we just never think about it, guys, and you need to. All right? I mean, you need to at least think about that. How would it feel to walk by every day the most beautiful fraternity and sorority houses knowing you can't be a member there? Because you were born the wrong color. The only chance you really have of getting in there is if you're a cook. How would that feel? Realize it's part of the genetics of where we're from. And I know you can't solve the problem, but you can stop being part of the problem. You can stop being part of it. If you're in Christ, then you are more closely united to a black Christian than you are to a white person who shares every part of your life. Because you're lifeblood, you're security, everything that you are. It's the same with him. We need to start living that out. One of the first questions I got asked when I came to do RUF here was, when are you going to get RUF desegregated? When are you going to integrate it? And I've been praying for that for years, but I'll tell you the answer. The answer now is still the same as it was then. As soon as you integrate your life. When you start having African Americans at your lunch table, I'll start having them at RUF. And until you do, until you make a point to do that, It's not just going to happen. Until you make a point to do that, then the South is going to continue the same problems we have. But you aren't getting ready. And I want to force this upon you, okay? You're getting ready to enter life, and you're about to become part of the problem or part of the solution. What kind of neighborhoods are you going to look for? All-white neighborhoods because they're safer? You're going to jump out of your neighborhood to protect your net property value? What are you going to do? Are you going to be part of the problem or part of the solution? Racial unity, denominational unity, and finally social unity. Can you be around people who are not like you? Are you able to hang out with people who are not like you? I had a campus minister friend up at the University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma University, who did a lottery date. When they were first getting started, kind of a small group, so for fun they had a lottery date, which meant everybody just put their name in a bucket, right? Boy's bucket, girl's bucket. He just reached in there, pulled out two names, put them together. They had to go on a date. They had to come back, tell everybody, they all went on a date on the same night. The guy, he pulled out this girl who was just absolutely beautiful, the prettiest girl in the group, huge person in her sorority, very socially astute, girl who's getting the gospel, she's figuring it out. He reaches over and pulls out a guy's name who's basically socially just kind of handicapped. clumsy, not comfortable in his skin, and it was just terrible. But he keeps encouraging the guy, you know, you got to do it, you got to do it, it'll be great, ask her out, you got to do it. So he finally asks her out, the girl goes, you know, he takes her to a place that he thinks will be the most comfortable, it's that place where, you know, students are always hanging out. She's terribly aware of being seen, and so just pouts and refuses to talk to him during the entire date. And she comes, by the time, The date's over, the poor guy's on the verge of just crying. And the girl gets home and she calls up Doug and says, I can't believe you subjected me to that. I will never come to RUF again. She thought he'd done it on purpose. You hang out with people different than you. Is that your security? People like you. RUF people. Is it your security to be around good people like you? If RUF is your fraternity, then you're sick. If RUF is your fraternity... Well, seriously, if RUF is your fraternity, how do you feel about it growing? How do you feel about people coming into it who is not their fraternity? If it's your clique... And, you know, that's a real problem. I had a girl at Delta State. One year, the ministry actually grew. I was astounded. I was ecstatic. I couldn't believe it. I was talking to one of the girls in my core group. I asked her what she thought about it. She said, Oh, I just can't wait for all these sorority girls to quit coming. They don't really want to be here. Just self-righteousness. This is my group and you don't belong here. Are you able to overcome that? You know, again, one of the first questions I was asked when I showed up here four years ago, what do you think of fraternities? This is my official answer, so I'll never get asked this again. Ready? I don't care. If you're called to be in a fraternity, take off. If you're not, take off. What does it mean if you're called to be in a fraternity? You're called to be in a fraternity if you want to be, if you have the opportunity to be, and if you can do it without sinning. I don't care. Same for sororities. But you need to understand this. They're just social clubs. They're just clubs. They're not brotherhoods. Your brothers are people who are in Jesus Christ. Your sisters are people who are in Jesus Christ. They are just clubs. And you can get mad at me about that if you want to. I hope you don't. I like having y'all. But secondly, and I will say this, this is where you'll be tempted to sin. When rush comes up. And it's time when rush comes up, you keep your mouth shut. Because it is the opposite of Christianity to deprive people of your fellowship because they're not like you. You do not have the right to say that. Do you understand? If you believe anything we've learned from Ephesians 1 and 2, you understand that God went out and sought fellowship with people not like Him. When rush comes up, you've got nothing to say. You give out 300 bids. And if the only thing that makes your fraternity or sorority special to you is that it's exclusive, you need to understand what you just confessed. You just confessed that what you love about it is that it's the opposite of the gospel. So there you go. And if you're trying to make RUF exclusive, shame on you, I'll kick you out. And that's enough. Now, that's not Moses Hogue was a pastor at Second Presbyterian Church, Richmond, Virginia, for 55 years. He was a chaplain during the war between the states. During that war, he witnessed something, heard a story of something. There was one of the battles in northern Virginia, a Yankee soldier. I was shot, fatally wounded. And he started calling out for someone. His men had retreated beyond him. He started calling out to Confederate soldiers. Can you pray with me? Can you pray with me? One of the soldiers walked by and saw him on the ground. He said, I never learned to pray for myself. I can't pray for you, but I'll do what I can. He pulled him under a tree and put him into the shade. The Confederate officer walked by. He yelled out to him. Can you pray with me? Confederate officer got off of his horse. and walked over to the Union soldier and got on his knees and began to pray for him. And as he prayed, the Union soldier put his arms up around his neck to support his weight. And as the petitions came forth from this young officer, the man died. Isn't that an amazing picture of a dead man with his arms around the neck of his mortal enemy? Maybe the person who had just killed him. But at that dying moment, they realized that what they had in common was Jesus Christ and nothing else mattered. Wouldn't it be nice if we could live like that instead of dying like that? Please pray with me. Father in heaven, we pray that we would live as we will die. Then we will certainly know what's important and what's not. I pray we would live knowing what's important. I pray that we would live. Such a way that we love those who love you. Would you make it real in our hearts, we pray in Jesus name. Amen.