Pastor Sunroot Liu
Importance of Community Acts 2:42-47 Devotion to a Christian community is how God transforms us - We are exposed to the ugliness in ourselves and others, and sticking with the same community teaches us to deal with conflict. - We all have gifts to share with others in the community, and that others can share with us. - Being in a community enables us to be a light to the rest of the world.
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Danny Hernandez
Being Rooted in Community Acts 2:42-47 Why do we continuously gather? Why do we meet up as Christians during college when we could be doing so many other things? We are called to be devoted to community! God has saved us individually and into a community! God’s presence dwelling IN us is mindblowing! Before the Holy Spirit came into us, the only place God resided was the temple. The early church faced issues of: Racial tensions, Controversy over Circumcision, Idol Worship, False Teaching, Sexual Immorality, Lawsuits If it’s possible for these early, messy churches to be in community, it’s possible for us too. Nature of community TEACHING of God’s word
Results of a devoted community WORSHIP
Ultimately Jesus is the center of community Pastor Arnold Kim
Rooted In Our Identity As Children Of God Religion: man-centered, focused on what man needs to do. Ex: 5 pillars of islam, 10 commandments of judaism, 8 paths of buddhism What happens if you fail? Sin is the failure. Try harder and fix yourself, yet you'll fail again. It's a cycle. This applies to secular world too. "I as an individual need to do certain things in life like get a good job and raise a nice family. If I fail, I need to try harder." Gospel: Begins with Jesus and what Jesus has done for us. When we sin, we believe and enjoy and look towards Jesus Christ The gospel: We were formed from the worthless dust of the ground and God gave us the breath of life. God gave us a warning to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. People don’t know the true source of the problem. The problem is knowing good and evil, morality, ethics, the LAW. The tree is GOOD in general. It’s not good for US. It will kill us. God gave Adam a choice. Do you want to live dependent on my grace or independent of God? The law becomes sin. The law is a ministry of condemnation that kills you. The law polluted humanity, so now we are sinners. It doesn’t take even a single sin for us to be sinners. We were BORN sinners, because of Adam. Adam became spiritually dead. Without the breath of life, we are dead. As long as we are apart from God, we are born dead. Christ means "Anointed one". He is the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. Christ is four in one: the prophet, priest, king, and judge. The holy spirit allows humans to interact with God. Oil represents the holy spirit. The bible is asking the question... okay... who is the Christ? Matthew 16. JESUS IS THE CHRIST. Son of living God. The Christ came to die. Jesus came to die. But Jesus is the life. The spring of water. The bread of life. Jesus didn't come to make bad people good. Our main problem is that we’re spiritually dead and separated from God. Jesus came to CONQUER DEATH and connect us with God. On the cross, our sin was negatively imputed onto Christ. Sin is a noun. Christ positively imputed us with righteousness. Righteousness is not the sum total of our good deeds. Satan wants us to be blinded to the fact that God has made us righteous. Christ is in us! We are in Christ! Satan’s main goal is to blind us, not to make us “bad”. Satan can blind us from bad things and also good things. Satan can’t take away Jesus, but he can blind us. Who am I? We are creation separated from our creator. We are wandering purposelessly. We are cosmic orphans drifting through the universe. We are spiritually dead, walking zombies...Apart from God, we are zombies. Our fundamental problem is that we’re dead, we need life. Who are we? We are a literal dead end. The right question: Who is Jesus? The world: Who am I? Christians: Who is Jesus? Matthew 3 The significance of the baptism. Crossing the Jordan River. Jordan means descends. The Jordan descends into the dead sea. The law (Moses) is unable to lead people into the promised land. But JOSHUA (Jesus!) can!!! Jesus gets baptized into “Death water”. He is announcing his death. Jesus is the “dam” that stops “damnation”. He will stop the death water. Jesus didn’t do anything miraculous for 30 years. The Holy Spirit comes on Him when he’s 30 (the anointing), as priests did. The Holy Spirit was doing all the miraculous works. Jesus functioned 100% as a man on earth to be a sacrifice yet he was 100% divine. Jesus is a perfect son. He depending on God the Father. Jesus came not to abolish the law but to fulfill the law. The law is a perfect description of Jesus. It’s not a list of things to do. Jesus is the good samaritan. Jesus always calls God his Father. The son can do nothing of his own accord but only what he sees the Father doing. Jesus has always been with God. But at the cross, God will turn His back to Jesus. The most excruciating aspect of the cross is the rejection. It was in Jesus’ rejection that we have acceptance. We need to listen to God our Father. We are His children. Let’s LISTEN to God our Father talk to us. Hear God speak to us. God has DONE SO MUCH FOR US. He has done more for us than we could do for Him. Earthly fathers don’t ask us to work for them. Identity is based on what’s inside. We don’t give someone a glass of coke and tell them “have some glass” we tell them “have some coke”. The identity inside is what is important. Jesus is inside of us. He is our identity. He is our worth. Pastor Abe Park of Newsong Church
Matthew 6, The Lord’s Prayer Prayer comes from a desperate place. Ex: “God if you don’t come through I’m screwed” Have you ever said a prideful prayer? Ex: “What great things can you do through me at UCI?” vs “What great things are you already doing at UCI that I can be a part of?” How can we be a part of what God is already doing? What do we pray for when we pray to God? Is it different from what other religions pray for? Lords prayer
Abba = Father = We can have communion with a Triune God Daily bread = daily needs Forgiveness = reconciliation Sin = sin Theres an issue when your 4,5,6 are your 1,2,3. Seek first 1,2,3: The kingdom of God and His righteousness. Seek later 4,5,6. Half your prayer should be for His greatness. The other half is your stuff What does it mean for God’s kingdom to come and for His will to be done? We petition for God’s will to be done. We cry out, we ask, God’s will be over our will. Irvine: Idolizes comfort and affluence. Some churches have become a place of comfort and affluence! How can we push ourselves out of comfort Verse 15 If you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. What have others done that we havent done to God?!?! Pastor Kevin Hayashida
Church and Parachurch Three areas where PKevin was impacted during college and him getting plugged into the local church ~ Use college as a preparation for when you graduate and become a young adult We are in college for a season We need a place to transition to, to have community and to be in God’s love. Devotion to God
Mission: Reach people with the good news of Jesus Christ Set good habits Serve and be devoted to the Church Get out of your comfort zone Pastor Ted Kau
Rooted in God’s Word Pslam 1:1-6 So much brokenness and hardship can result from not being rooted in God’s word. Christ, God’s son, is uniquely revealed in God’s word How do we know lyrics and jingles so well? It’s because we’re exposed so much to them. What about God’s word??? How well can you finish a verse? “God’s word will keep you from sinning, or sin will keep you from God’s word.” Richard Baxton In a survey, a majority of Christians only read their Bible four times a year. On the average, we spend 3.5 hours on social media, while we spend 3 minutes a day reading God’s word. Ratio: 70 world: 1 the Word If we do not hide God’s word in our hearts, what do we hide there instead? It’s not because of the speaker that you are convicted by God’s word. It’s because of the receptivity of your heart. v1 Blessed (happy) is the person who
Is your delight in the sinner’s way, or in God’s way? v3 Being rooted in God’s word will cause us to prosper spiritually, to bear good fruit, to be spiritually resilient. v4 sinners will be blown away v5 the arguments and evidence of the sinner will have no weight before God’s judgment v6 we will have no more sin in heaven, because the way of the wicked will perish GODS WORD CHANGES. TRANSFORMS. FEEDS YOUR SOUL. SPIRITUAL FLOURISHING WILL OCCUR. BE ROOTED IN HIS WORD!!! You can have a good relationship, good kids, good career, but you need God’s word, otherwise you are just like any nonChristian. Pastor Terry Coon
Rooted in Love Romans 5 How rooted are you? And what are you rooted in? In Romans 5, God establishes his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us . The reason Christians have peace is because they know that there is a great God who loves them. When we hear that God loves us instead of acting in humility we think of course God love us/say “Duh why wouldn’t he?” God is the standard of righteousness that we should be comparing ourselves to not other people. All of us apart from Christ are not deserving of his love . God loves us not because we are loveable, not because we are so great, not because we are saving ourselves, not because we are lovely looking. God loves you because he loves you and that’s just who he is God’s love is the only unconditional and secure love that we will find. Rooting yourself in God’s love changes everything. Until you understand how unloveable you are from Christ you will never be able to understand God’s love for us. Until you realize how bad you are at the core you will never be able to embrace God’s love. God’s love doesn’t guarantee a problem free life but it does mean that whatever we face, God has fully committed himself to us in that every experience we have, He has a way of working it out for our good and His glory Three reasons to be rooted in His love: (1) God’s love saves (Romans 5:9) God’s love is strong enough to save even the worst of sinners Ephesians 2: the only reason anybody gets saved is because God loves them and his love saves them (2) God’s love sustains us God takes the bad and good in our lives and works in such a way that it produces good God’s love is so strong that on our worst days we can be confident that God is doing something in it The only reason we’ve gotten this far in life is because God has kept us (3) God’s love secures Even though we struggle with sin God’s love never gives up on us God will never reject us Once we are loved by God, we don’t have to fear God’s love ever running out on us or in our lives Nothing can separate us from God’s love If you are looking for something to root your life in, root it in god’s love - it is the only thing that is secure and that remains Pastor Crit
Enduring Faith in College Who youre with and who youre around is important during your college years. About 70% of youth church goers, after 5 years post-college, no longer have any distinguishable signs of faith. This is linked to what happens to you during your college years James 1:2-4 “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” What is going to show when your faith endures is how you make it through trials, temptations, and testing. You will be faced with trials and temptation, you may face simple testings such as having distractions from going to church. Walkthrough of PCrit's past in college: Graduated high school, attended Christian camps, had a basic understanding of salvation. Going to college was a drastic change. Living away from parents, didn’t know anyone. What he should have realized is what he needed was not just to remember the gospel and stay away from bad things, but to be around the body of Christ, to bear his burdens, to have his faith strengthened, to be spurred on towards love and good deeds. He had an isolated faith. He felt he knew the basic gospel so he didn't need to be a part of church or a fellowship. All his support systems were gone. Transferred to USC, specifically looked for a AACF. Joined a fraternity and began to have a very worldly faith. Began dating a nonChristian; didn't renounce Christ verbally, but through actions. The trap: You meet someone who meets ALL your criteria, except they don’t have a faith. Many of us are in the middle: between not wanting to renounce Christ and not wanting to be around Christians. When you don't choose to be in Gods community in college, you will choose to be in another community, because we all need community as God has designed us. Turning point: Intervarsity students took him out on his birthday for dinner, was introduced to a group of college students who showed the love of Christ. Joined church college fellowship @ Wintersburg. Students had same struggles as him, “where is God in my life”. He was brought back to the faith, through IV, through AACF, through Wintersburg. There is no such thing as a "lone-ranger" Christian. If you try to go "lone-ranger", you lose out on your faith, and you lose out on blessing others with the gifts He has given you. Through AACF, he got involved in serving in youth ministry, Mount Hermon, and he got inspired to go to seminary and help bring others to faith Wherever you're at in your faith journey, look around at your community. This is who God provided to help you along in your journey in faith. This is the people God has given you to help them in their journey of faith. PSunroot Liu
Spiritual Gifts Talk to your local pastor first, because there are many differing opinions Prophecy, speaking in tongues, encouragement by the Word, healing by prayer, rebuke... spiritual gifts range. 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 Paul warns us against being led astray by teachers who might deceive us. Understand the nature of spiritual gifts. Do not be uninformed. Know what your gifts are. We are all called by the same God!!! Spiritual gifts are meant to unite us as one. When we utilize them, they’re meant to draw us together. Spiritual gifts cannot contradict scripture. Purpose of gifts is to build up the church. Spiritual gifts are for the common good! When you use your spiritual gifts, they’re meant to profit others, to glorify God, to bring together and include. God apportions to each one individually as he wills. He multiplies what we have. God uses our whole history, God knows us truly, He will use what we have already. Pastor Adam Noritake
Living in the Holy Spirit Ephesians 5:18-21 “Do not get drunk” Mixing alcohol with religious worship was common They would get drunk on wine and be filled with the “spirit” of Dionysus. There are physical and emotional indicators of drunkenness. Paul compars drunkenness from alcohol and being filled with the Spirit. Imagine the Spirit filling you, and the power of that filling, with change and totality that comes with it. When we are filled with the Spirit, we do not sing drunken songs, but we sing songs of praise to God! Have a BALANCED DIET when it comes to praising God!!! Hymns vs contemporary songs. Hymns were written by Christians who were as God-loving and Spirit-filled as Christians are now! Corporate praise is special. Being a Spirit-filled Christian means having praise on your lips, showing gratitude to God. Complaining is the antithesis to gratitude. God will make us into a thankful people. The Spirit has to work in us on the inside to make us grateful. We need the right perspective: we were created to worship God. The gospel needs to be real to us. How does the Holy Spirit make a broken, hurting person give thanks even in the darkest of places? How does God take that person and make them overflow with thanksgiving? A spirit-filled Christian is subject to one another out of love for Christ. We are all under authority. We are under authority of our parents, teachers, mentors, GOD (in the form of the Trinity: Father, then Son, then Holy Spirit, yet all EQUAL.) Jesus was under authority of God, obedient until death. There is an authority structure amongst Christians, especially in church. We should strive to be LAST in authority within the church. Love the church, serve the church. Spirit-filled people do these things: Praise God Give thanks Serve others |