Omc: Family Chapel

In the midst of life that is hard and full of trials, God gives us something better than life - namely, Himself. In our trials, we discover the goodness of God, as we engage in disciplined, dogged pursuit, as well as remembrance and repetition. And we can know that God is better than life because He satisfies us and He strengthens us. May we lean into the God who is better than life!

Building off of last week's teaching, James continues to point out marks of an inconsistent life that are oppositions to a thriving community. In this passage, James is calling for repentance over the quarrels, conflicts, and slander plaguing their communities caused by double-mindedness and a divided heart. He then exhorts his readers to humble themselves and turn away from all worldliness, selfishness, and fleshly desires. Ultimately, we see James teaching that a thriving community is built by thriving people who humbly follow the Lord wholeheartedly.

We're always on the search for wisdom to make right decisions, but we have to make sure we're leaning into the right kind of wisdom. Here, James contrasts false wisdom with true wisdom. Unlike false wisdom which is self-seeking and results in a destructive life, true wisdom is godly character and results in a thriving life. Ultimately, for James, true wisdom doesn’t just lead to taking the right kind of actions, but it also leads to becoming the right kind of person. And for us as Christians, we ultimately become wise people as we follow after Jesus, in whom is found all wisdom.

As we have been learning, James is calling for consistency in our lives that shows evidence of genuine faith. He previously called for no partiality, care for the vulnerable, and a faith that works. And so another area where James calls for consistency is in our talk. He calls us to take care to control our tongue because it is so powerful. And in our current cultural climate that looks to demonize and ridicule (social media and news is exhausting and depressing), we are called to not use our speech to tear down, but rather to build up. And ultimately, this means to deal with our hearts, for out of the heart, the mouth speaks.

Rightly understanding the relationship between faith and works is crucial to a thriving life. Here, James outlines the important relationship between faith and works. First, faith apart from works is dead. Second, faith involves orthopraxy, not just mere orthodoxy. And third, works are the proof of genuine faith. A working faith will work. A faith that is alive will change your life.

In a heavy honor/shame culture (very similar to our Asian culture in a lot of ways), James teaches that we ought not to show partiality based on wealth and status because it violates the royal law of "loving your neighbor as yourself". Showing partiality shows a heart that stands in judgment over others rather than mercy. The challenge for us is to ask: are we truly treating everyone (even the most difficult and of no benefit to us) with the same love, honor, and respect?

The Word of God is indispensable to a thriving life. And yet, we often treat God’s Word as either optional or a boring obligation. Rather than dismissing God's Word, how can we rightly engage with God’s Word? James calls us to rightly engage with God's Word by hearing God's Word and by doing God's Word.

While everyone goes through trials in life, not everyone grows through those trials. Here in our passage, James shows how we can better navigate our trials so that they don't morph into destructive temptations. If we want to come out the other side better rather than bitter, we need to guard our hearts and we need to guide our eyes.

The Christian life is a dynamic life that involves growth. As such, Christians are called to walk on the path to maturity. In our passage, James shows us what the path to maturity involves. It involves embracing trials as opportunities for growth, praying for wisdom in faith, and finding one's identity in the Gospel.

God offers a final word of encouragement to His people by promising them hope. And the hope that God offers is the establishing of His Kingdom through the Messiah. Zerubbabel serves as a confirmation and a preview of the King who is to come - Jesus Christ. And through our passage, we see that what we need in order to thrive in seasons of uncertainty and difficulty is hope. And for us, this biblical hope is guaranteed, it is eschatological, and it is Christ-centered.

We are continuing our Haggai Series looking at Haggai 2:10-19. In the previous two weeks, we learned that thriving in "less than ideal" circumstances calls for right priorities (worshipping God) and obedience (obeying God). This week, we will learn the third aspect, which was purity (right heart towards God). Even when the Israelites were doing their external duties, their work was defiled as their hearts were not right. So as they were called to rebuild the temple, the call was to also check their hearts and relationship towards God. In the end, there is a message of hope and grace, as God promises to bless them even though they were a defiled people.

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.