Omc: Family Chapel

After the Israelites respond to God's call to rebuild the Temple, initial excitement soon gives way deep discouragement. Like the Israelites, we too may experience the difficulties of obedience. But as God's people, we should live in obedience to God because there are some important blessings that only come through obedience. Obedience brings the blessing of God's presence. Obedience brings the blessing of God's provision. And obedience brings the blessing of unexpected fruit.

After returning from exile in Babylon, the Israelites were initially filled with excitement to be back. But their excitement quickly gave way to apathy, and decades later, the Temple still remained in ruins. In their failure to prioritize worship, God sends the prophet Haggai to re-issue the call to rebuild the Temple. Worship is to be a priority among the people of God. And a life empty of worship actually leads to a life filled with frustration. Therefore, we should seek to make worship a priority as we seek to live a thriving life.

As Christians, we feel the tension of having both earthly citizenship and heavenly citizenship. We are in the world, but not of the world. So, what does it look like to rightly engage with our world? How can we thrive with civic health? Well, rather than isolating ourselves from the world or assimilating ourselves to the world, thriving with civic health means actively seeking to bring comprehensive renewal to the city by pursuing its common good. And as disciples of Christ, we can do so by practicing proximity, preaching the Gospel, and pressing on in hope.

This Sunday we will look at "Thriving with Financial Health". Rather than looking at it from a pure "get your finances in check" point of view (albeit important), I wanted to give weight to the topic the way the Bible addresses it, which is mainly an issue of the heart. We will first explore the warnings and dangers the Bible presents in regards to the love of money. Then we will learn that thriving financially is not so much how many zeros we have in our bank account, but rather in radical generosity and faithful stewardship as an expression of faith that in Christ, we have gained everything.

Work is undoubtedly a very important part of our lives. Most of us will spend on average about 100,000 hours of our lives doing work. But our work is more than just our job or our career, but it is our calling. Historically, Christians have understood that it was God who called them to do certain work. And if we are called by God, then our vocation flows out of our discipleship to Jesus. Based on a biblical theology of work, thriving with our vocational health means doing our work well to bring glory to God and good to our neighbors, as we bring together our competency, conviction, and compassion.

We've been learning over the past few weeks of how different aspects of your life and (spiritual, mental, physical, emotional) self are interconnected, and that the thriving we hope to pursue is holistic. Therefore it's crucial that we learn to thrive relationally because healthy relationships enhance all our other "healths" (mental, emotional, physical, financial, etc). This Sunday we will look at three main ideas: the essential need for relational health, the foundation of relational health, and the test of relational health.

Mental health is such a complex intersection of spiritual, physiological, emotional, and relational factors that it's hard to give a comprehensive definition, but in general, thriving with mental health means loving God with all of our mind in such a way that we think, feel, and act in ways that are pleasing to God. And we can pursue after mental health as we rightly know who God is, rightly experience who God is, and rightly live in light of who God is. We are able to experience a greater wholeness in our inner thought life as we set our minds on the things above.

In order to thrive with physical health, we need a biblical theology of our bodies. In looking at what the Bible has to say about our bodies, we see that God has created us as embodied creatures, sin has impacted our bodies, Christ has redeemed not just our souls but also our bodies, and that we have the hope of a bodily resurrection. In seeing these truths, we recognize that our bodies are not outer shells that we eventually throw away when we get to heaven, but our bodies are very valuable and important gifts that God has given us to steward well for His Kingdom purposes.

When it comes to our emotions, we tend to fall into one of two errors: we either ignore our emotions or we idolize our emotions. But as we see throughout Scripture, we are called to rightly engage with our emotions in order to more deeply worship God. We do so by identifying, examining, evaluating, and rightly responding to our emotions. And in doing so, the goal of emotional health is not to avoid "feeling bad", but rather it is to bring ourselves as whole people, in both our positive and negative emotions, before God in deeper love and worship.

This week, we begin a 7-part series on Thriving Health in the different arenas of human life (spiritual, emotional, physical, mental, relational, vocational, and financial). If we want to obey the call to thrive, it is important that we strive to be healthy holistically in each of these seven categories. We start this series by first exploring how to thrive with spiritual health. Spiritual health is ultimately achieved when we are rooted in the Spirit. By His grace and strength, He has provided us the means of grace to remain rooted in Him.

As the Apostle Paul closes out his letter to the Galatians, he ends with a call to live the cross-centered life. Rather than living in fear of human rejection or living in love of human praise, we can live the cross-centered life by boasting in the cross and by walking by the Spirit. This cross-centered life will be especially lived out in the context of suffering. But in living the cross-centered life, we walk in fullness of joy with the One who has gone to the cross on our behalf.

I want to include the last verse of chapter 5 (v.26) because I think it fits with the overall message of chapter 6:1-10. Here Paul is explaining the practical outworkings and evidence of a Spirit filled life, and that is to love one another. Walking in the Spirit means the freedom to truly love one another through mutual accountability. This means to look out for one another. But in order to do this with true love, there needs to be personal accountability. This means to check yourself before you wreck yourself (examine your own faith, pride or envy). And lastly, a genuine fruit of the Spirit will produce a persevering accountability. Let us not grow weary in doing good, a very much needed reminder in the season that we are in.

In this letter, the Apostle Paul has graciously reminded us of the freedom we have in Christ and he has exhorted us to live in that freedom. But as we have all experienced, we struggle to live like we’re free. And the reason for this struggle is because we face an internal battle between our flesh and the Holy Spirit - between who we were born as and who we were born again to be. But we can rightly live in the freedom that Jesus provides by crucifying the flesh and by walking by the Spirit.

After defending the doctrine of justification by faith, the Apostle Paul now shows how justification by faith secures freedom in Christ. Freedom in Christ is received by faith in Christ to live as children of God through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. As Paul has already shown in his letter, freedom in Christ is not legalism, which seeks to earn God's favor. But on the flip side, freedom Christ is also not libertinism, which seeks to abuse God's favor. Rather, freedom in Christ seeks to live in God's favor and primarily expresses itself in love for others.

Through His resurrection, Jesus secures for us the hope of Heaven. And the hope of Heaven brings us the hope of restoration. We can look forward to the presence of God and the absence of sin. And by doing so, we can move forward with confidence in our present circumstances by holding on to our future hope. This is our unshakable hope in Christ!

What was once a dreadful symbol of torture and death, the cross is instead embraced by Christians as a proof of hope, victory, and love. If there's ever a need to remind ourselves that God is with us, for us, and loves us, we only have to look to the cross. There is victory in and through the cross, the finished work of Jesus Christ. And as we celebrate and reflect on this day of victory that Jesus purchased for us through his blood, let us walk in victory. Even in the midst of our trials and circumstances, we can thrive.

Wrapping up his theological argument, Paul concludes this section with one final thrust to bring the Galatians back to the truth of the Gospel. In using the picture of Sarah and Hagar, Paul turns a common attack used by the Judaizers on its head, and declares that only those who rest upon faith alone are the true children of God, the children of promise. While life on this side of eternity may and often will be difficult, we have a hope and promise that allows us to live in true freedom.

After putting forth tightly weaved arguments to defend the truth of justification by faith, Paul takes a little pause in his letter and he makes a direct appeal to his friends who have turned their backs on Christ. And by setting an example, Paul encourages us to minister to our backsliding friends by leaning into the relationship, speaking the truth in love, and holding on to joyful hope.

Justification has two implications: one legal (we are not guilty but declared righteous) and the other relational. Here in Galatians 4:25-4:7 we are looking at the relational aspect that comes with justification by faith. To the Jews, their distinctive identity and justification surrounded the Law (Torah) and their heritage (that they were Abraham’s offspring by circumcision). In response, after dealing with the true purpose of the Law, Paul is now arguing that being a true offspring of Abraham is not based on ethnicity or works (circumcision), but rather faith in Christ. Therefore, justification by faith leads to a whole new relational identity with God and with one another as adopted sons and daughters of God. In addition, we become heirs through Christ to all the promised blessings to enjoy for all eternity. We will explore this glorious truth of adoption given by grace and promise.