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 talking about how the gospel sets us free to live wisely and beautifully in God’s world, redeeming all of our relationships. In this week’s sermon, we talk about the foundation of all relationships— friendship. 

*Much of this material was drawn from the thoughts and writings of Tim Keller, Rebecca McLaughlin, Justin Early, C.S. Lewis and Matt Smethurst on this subject. I am grateful for their hard work. For more on friendship, I especially recommend Rebecca McLaughlin’s No Greater Love and Justin Early’s book Made for People. 

Quotes: 

“If we had to take all eighty-four years of [research] and boil it down to a single principle for living,... it would be this: Good relationships keep us healthier and happier. Period.”- The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness

“We were made by God for more than God. Our fullest spirituality is only possible with others. Our intended existence only works in a community. Our highest call is only realized when we pursue it alongside others. In other words, you need friends to be who God made you to be. Friends are the anatomy of your soul. They are at the core of your longings. This is why you feel the way you do.— Justin Whitmel Early 

“In modern Western culture, we are primed to think of friendship as a nice-to-have, while sexual and romantic love and parent-child love are vital to our thriving. But Jesus flips this script. Instead of telling His disciples that they must get married and have children, Jesus tells His followers that they must love each other, even to the point of death. When Jesus said there was no greater love than laying down one's life for one's friends, He wasn't being hyperbolic or naive. Instead, He was inscribing the good news of His unfathomable love for us onto Christian friendship with indelible ink.” -Rebecca McLaughlin 

“Erotic attraction and family relationships push themselves on you in various ways, but friendship will not. It must be carefully, intentionally cultivated through face-to-face time spent together. And in a busy culture like ours, it is one thing that is often squeezed out.” - Tim Keller

“People who simply “want friends” can never make any. The very condition of having Friends is that we should want something else besides Friends ... Friendship must be about something … Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow travelers.” -C.S. Lewis