Welcome to IU!

Here at Clearnote Campus Fellowship, we want to equip you for the challenges of college life, but we want to do more than that. It may sound strange, especially if you just started college, but our goal is actually to prepare you for life after college. We want you to know what it means to honor the God who made you, and how you can joyfully serve Him in all of life. Here are some of the ways we're doing that this Fall semester…

We strive to see IU students come to know, love, and obey Jesus Christ.

We want to produce students who are committed to "contending earnestly for the faith which was once and for all handed down to the saints" (Jude 1:3).

– The Melting Pot @ the McNeillys'. Fridays, 7 PM. Weekly college-student gathering with games, music, food, and more!
– Examining Your Worldview. Sundays, 10 AM, Clearnote Church. Sunday School class for college students on what it means to think like a Christian, complete with donuts.

– Sciences w/ Ben Burlingham. Tuesdays, lunchtime, A206. A weekly Bible study in a professor’s office, geared towards science majors, pre-med, and med students.
– Law w/ Brian Bailey. Every other Thursday, 5 PM, Buffalouie's. A reading group with seasoned attorney Brian Bailey, discussing what it means to be a God-honoring lawyer.
– Music Students. Contact us if you're interested!

– Chinese Bible Study @ Jason’s. Fridays, 7 PM.
– Melting Pot @ the McMansion. Every 2nd Friday of the month.
– Chinese Service @ Clearnote Church. Sundays, 11 AM.

Who has believed our message?
And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
For You grew up before Him like a tender shoot,
And like a root out of parched ground;
You had no stately form or majesty
That we should look upon You,
Nor appearance that we should be attracted to You.
You were despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face
You were despised, and we did not esteem You.

Surely our griefs You Yourself bore,
And our sorrows You carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed You stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.
But you were pierced through for our transgressions,
You were crushed for our iniquities;
The chastening for our well-being fell upon You,
And by Your scourging we are healed.
All of us like sheep have gone astray,
Each of us has turned to his own way;
But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all
To fall on You.

You were oppressed and You were afflicted,
Yet You did not open Your mouth;
Like a lamb that is led to slaughter,
And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers,
So You did not open Your mouth.
By oppression and judgment You were taken away;
And as for Your generation, who considered
That You were cut off out of the land of the living
For the transgressions of my people, to whom the stroke was due?
Your grave was assigned with wicked men,
Yet You were with a rich man in Your death,
Because You had done no violence,
Nor was there any deceit in Your mouth.

But the LORD was pleased
To crush You, putting You to grief;
Because You rendered Yourself as a guilt offering,
You have seen Your offspring,
You have prolonged Your days,
And the good pleasure of the LORD prospers in Your hand.
As a result of the anguish of Your soul,
You see it and are satisfied;
By Your knowledge you, Righteous One,
The LORD's servant, have justified the many,
As You have borne their iniquities.
Therefore, the LORD has allotted You a portion with the great,
And You have divided the spoil with the strong;
Because You poured out Yourself to death,
And were numbered with the transgressors;
Yet You Yourself bore the sin of many,
And interceded for transgressors.

Tonight I preached on 1 John 4:17–18:

These are words of promise given to the children of God, those who have been born again by the Holy Spirit. This is the promise: if you believe in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, you need no longer fear God's judgment.

John is not saying that no one should fear God's judgment. In fact, if you do not believe in Jesus Christ, fearing God's judgment is exactly what you should be doing. Jesus said,

The Apostle Paul repeated Jesus' message:

Notice that salvation from the wrath of God is a promise given to those who have been justified by His blood. Apart from His blood, there is no escape from God's wrath.

This is the true Gospel. It says, "The wrath of God abides on you. You stand condemned before God. Believe in Jesus Christ and be saved." In other words, the true Gospel sees fear of God's judgment as a necessary precursor which compels us to receive God's grace.

But there's a half-gospel that is taking over.

It's a new year. It's a perfect time to recommit yourself to bathing every day in God's Word!

Instead of hopping on Facebook every spare moment, why not read a chapter of Scripture when you sit down by yourself?

Quite a number of CNCFers are joining me this year in doing a year-long reading plan called "Reading God's Story." It's kind of a combination of a chronological reading plan and a topical reading plan that gets you through the whole Bible in 365 days. The basic structure is chronological: you read the Bible in the order in which it was written. But the creator of the plan mixes in passages that relate to whatever event is happening in that day's reading.

For example, after reading the account of the Flood in Genesis 8 and 9, the plan has you read this Psalm on the same day:

I've been preaching through 1 John at CNCF on Tuesday nights this year. We're about halfway through! 1 John can be a difficult book to understand. To do so requires that you be spiritually minded, but I am so earthly minded. One of the Apostle John's refrains is the importance of having a clean conscience before God. What does that mean? It means seeking to obey God in everything all the time. It means never silencing or ignoring your conscience when it tells you no. And it means keeping short accounts with God by frequently and fully confessing your sins to Him—without reservation. A clean conscience helps sustain the Christian's real, ongoing, practical peace with God.

The opposite of a clean conscience is a defiled conscience which corrupts your ability to be a useful Christian. Here's one commentator on the importance of a clean conscience:

Is it your desire to keep a clean conscience before God? Do you have a daily peace with God which gives you confidence and makes you a truth-full light to those around you? Don't let a deadened conscience make you useless to God's kingdom.

We've got exciting plans for 2017, and we hope you'll join us!

When we don't believe God's Word, it's hard for us to imagine why God would condemn unbelievers whom we judge to be "good people." We tend to think of unbelief as an excusable sin—it's small potatoes compared to "big" sins, like racism, misogyny, or sex trafficking. If we judge our unbelieving friends to be moral, or nice, we often doubt God's declarations concerning those friends. And as we do so, we give a pass to our own unbelief, too.

The books I've been reading lately keep driving home the magnitude of the sin of unbelief. Here's Thomas Watson:

What does it mean that we're "evangelical"? Does it mean we seek to represent a particular conservative political subgroup? Not at all. "Evangelical" means…