Omc: Family Chapel

Our culture and society (even many Christians) seek to find meaning, purpose, and identity in our success and achievements. Therefore, both successes and failures are tremendous threats to our lives without the guiding truth of the gospel. We will explore these dangers of success, failure, and shame in the story of Abraham's family line, particularly focusing on Jacob, Leah and Rachel (Gen 27-33). Then we will see how the Gospel brings new identity (answering our shame) and new purpose (answering our drive) that gives us a solid rock on which to stand no matter what our lives may bring.

In our cultural moment, we are in a place where the self has been psychologized, our psychology has been sexualized, and our sexuality has been politicized. As such, our sexuality is a self-created identity that must not just be tolerated but celebrated. But in this confusing cultural moment, the Gospel brings clarity by upholding God's good design for sexuality and by redeeming us of our sexual brokenness through the work of Christ. Furthermore, the Gospel empowers us to love our neighbors well in their sexual brokenness as we seek to build the kind of community that embodies the grace and truth that is found in Jesus Christ.

As the world cries out for justice in an unjust world, the Gospel speaks to justice. The Gospel shows us that God's character serves as the foundation for true justice, that sin produces injustice at both individual and structural levels, that justice is secured through Jesus' work of justification on the cross, and that justice will be complete with the establishment of God's Kingdom. Because God is the God of justice, Christians should passionately pursue justice in light of the Gospel.

Because God is the one who created diversity, we can embrace our unique cultural identities and even view it as an asset and not a liability while we understand that our primary identity is in Christ. We can embrace who we are as we embrace whose we are. We must also let the gospel speak into ethnic/cultural identities because the gospel critiques every culture, redeems every culture, and reaches every culture.

Sometimes Christians can be so spiritually-focused that they ignore or disregard the importance of stewarding the material world. But we see that the Gospel provides some compelling reasons for why Christians should care about creation. We see that the environment is God's good creation. We see that humans are called to be good stewards of creation. We see that taking care of the environment is a way to love our neighbors, especially our future neighbors. And we see that God aims to restore all of creation. The Gospel grounds us as we seek to be good stewards of all that God has entrusted to us.

Cornelius, a Roman centurion, and his household end up converting Christ as the Gospel continues to spread to all nations. But before Cornelius experiences his conversion, the Apostle Peter must experience a conversion of sorts. While Peter understood the global scope of the Gospel, he was still very much embedded in his Jewish way of thinking that saw Gentiles (non-Jewish people) as unclean and unworthy to receive grace. God corrects that faulty understanding through a vision and by orchestrating a meeting with Cornelius, as He shows Peter that He does not show favoritism but rather invites all peoples regardless of their background to repent and believe and enter into His Kingdom. The Gospel comes with a house key that breaks down the walls of racial hostility.

As Saul travels to Damascus to continue his persecution of Christians, he has an encounter with the risen Christ that changes him forever. Through his conversion experience, we see the miracle of conversion. There is no such thing as a boring testimony! Conversion is a supernatural gift of God's sovereign grace. Conversion brings supernatural unity with God's family. Conversion involves a supernatural call to God's mission.

1 Corinthians 9:19-23 Praise led by Andy Hwang

The cost of God's Mission is great because it came at a great cost, namely the life of the Son Jesus Christ. Therefore, the cost of following Christ as disciple-makers is our lives as living sacrifices. Yet, greater than the cost is the joy and eternal rewards that we will receive when we remain faithful to his mission until the end.

The mission of the Church is to participate in God’s mission by making disciples of Jesus Christ. In the Great Commission, Jesus gives us the guidelines on how to do that by telling us to love people, to share the Gospel, and to help others mature in Christ. We can confidently engage in this mission because this mission will not fail.

Our God is a missional God. We see him carrying out His mission of redeeming people from all nations to enjoy His glory forever through the entire storyline of Scripture: Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Completion. And because our God is a missional God, we are called to be a missional people.

Even though Habakkuk is faced with such dire circumstances, he is able to maintain his hope in the Lord. His hope does not stem from his circumstances changing, but his hope stems from the God who is unchanging. As he refocuses his heart on God's presence and God's power, Habakkuk experiences the fruit of that abiding hope - enduring patience and indestructible joy. And like Habakkuk, our hope as we head into an unknown future isn't ultimately found in a vaccine, or in politics, or in an economic recovery, or a job offer, or our lives returning back to normal. But our hope is ultimately in the Lord. And when we abide in that hope, no matter the circumstances that surround us, we can truly thrive.

As we saw with the problem of evil last week, we will see that God is actually the God of justice and judgment. He declares that he will bring judgment on the Chaldeans (Babylonians) after using them for his sovereign purpose and declares a series of "woes" upon them. But in this, we see that because God is a God of justice, the Israelites and ultimately, even us, are also under judgment. We are not much different. The problem of evil is not a problem with God, it's our problem. And so, the call is for the righteous to live by faith in God. To trust in his sovereign purposes. To be in awe of his mercy and long suffering. And for us to realize that we escape judgment by putting our faith in the work of God's son.

The prophet Habakkuk confronts God with the problem of evil: How can we make sense of a good God in an evil world? Through this dialogue, we see that God remains sovereign even over an evil world, without being complicit in the evil He sovereignly oversees. The paradox of His goodness is that He intentionally allows evil to accomplish His good purposes. The greatest demonstration of that paradox is ultimately seen in the Cross! The call then for Christians is to live with steadfast faith in a good God even in the midst of an evil world.

We tend to live very busy lives in a very busy world. And oftentimes, we even wear busyness as a badge of honor - the busier we are, the more important we feel. But busyness is usually not a time management issue, as much as it is a heart issue - our neglect to rest reveals the issues in our hearts. Thankfully, we can better tackle the heart issues of busyness by rightly engaging in the spiritual discipline of Sabbath. Put simply, Sabbath is a weekly rhythm of rest that helps us to be renewed in Christ and look forward to the eternal rest that is to come. May we rest well in Christ so that we can thrive well for His glory!

One of the inescapable realities of life is making decisions. And everyday, we are confronted with thousands and thousands of decisions to make. These decisions eventually shape the direction of our lives. As such, these decisions are actually invitations to grow in Christ-likeness as we learn to say with Jesus, "Not my will, but Your will be done." The spiritual discipline of discernment is walking in the way of wisdom as we seek to align our will to God’s will.

While not obligatory, fasting is a powerful tool to open up our hearts and character to the work of the Holy Spirit. We will explore various passages to see how fasting raises our spiritual sensitivity, helps fight against our flesh, and directs our focus towards God with humility.