The 180 Church Podcast with Dr. Sammy and Friends

Transitions

As we transition from the Christmas season and the New Year, we often wonder about the implications of being between two major moments in life. Things during this time can feel often ungratifying, stagnant, and insignificant, though there is more than meets the eye in what God is doing at these times. There are things that are seen and often celebrated, such as accolades, success, and gifting. God is focused on the things that are unseen, for the sake of eternal glory.

Advent: Love

We often misconstrue love as sentiment and romance, rather than a commitment we abide by regardless of how we feel. Similarly, we focus on the warm sentimentality of Christmas and overlook the fierce commitment that believers like Mary and Joseph made to God, even at the great cost of scandal. Tune into this week's sermon as Dr. Sammy discusses the true nature of love as a hard call to responsibility and a soft tenderness and vulnerability we must courageously embrace.

Advent: Joy

Many of us chase pleasure because we become addicted to the temporary happiness that a quick fix offers. But the reality of joy is that it not only lasts eternally, but it also points to something greater than our own desires. What we learn from Advent is joy revealed in the person of Christ as a sign from heaven beyond any happiness that we know.

Advent: Peace

With the season of Advent upon us, Joe and Pastor Lydia usher in a conversation revolving around the 4 major themes of this season: hope, peace, joy, and love. Today’s theme focuses on a conversation about peace and why the kind of peace we place our hopes and trust in this world seems to be so elusive, temporal, and frail. It’s difficult really to even have a moment that is free from any disturbance - anything can go wrong, really. However, the peace offered to us through the person of Jesus Christ, the King of kings and the prince of peace, helps us put into perspective what it means to have an unchanging and accessible peace.

Advent: Hope

Advent is the season when we observe the arrival of Jesus Christ into the world. During this moment when hope may be hard to find, we anticipate the coming of Christ who came to offer hope, peace, joy, and love. In times of uncertainty, polarization, mental health concerns, and tragedy, Hope seems to be a faint pulse when we put it in our own hands, institutions, and leaders. However, the good news of advent offers us a hope that is substantial, unfailing, and alive.

New Life: Power

Democracy's grasp on the greatest world powers is loosening, and we are witnessing more abuses of power, in Hong Kong among other places. Though we may feel helpless against what is happening in the wider world, we must differentiate between the world’s power and God’s power. When we live according to God’s power, we treat each other as equals rather than subjugating people through a cycle of intimidation and violence. The gospel counters the abuse of power by showing how God wins over people with love through Jesus's humility, instead of making slaves through fear.

New Life: Ambition

In today’s episode, Joe and Pastor Lydia tackle the nuances revolving around the dark side of ambition. Regardless of what brought us here into big cities like New York, there’s a wee bit of ambition in each and every one of us whether we’d like to admit that or not. It seems God is not opposed to ambition, fame, success or wealth, but at what cost are we willing to obtain, achieve and conquer? Perhaps that cost is simply too high as it hurts others and ourselves in the process, and so the gospel and the leadership of Jesus in his ministry teach us how and why to use influence for the service of others.

New Life: Reflection

In this weeks episode, Joe and Pastor Lydia sit together and reflect on what it means to live a life of gratitude sparked by a life led by reflection. It’s not uncommon for many of us to feel like we’re discontent with our lives. Whether it is positive or even negative, we’re quick to come back to a baseline level of happiness after a period of time, which is often referred to as the hedonic treadmill. So, how do you get off this treadmill? We think it begins with a little bit of reflection, a bit of gratitude, which brings us to a heart of worship.

New Life: Amazing Grace

Grace is good in concept, but difficult to live out because everything seems to be a meritocracy, where we have to earn our love, worth, and value. We become conditioned to be skeptical of unmerited favor, always assuming there is some catch to anything that is both free and good. How do we receive grace when we are always facing this standard of perfection? It's the experience of receiving grace that's hard, but the simple truth is God loves us because of his goodness and not our behavior or the ways we try to earn grace. The process of truly accepting God's love enables us to live fuller lives when we know that Christ died for our sins and mistakes.

New Life: Incomparable Grace

In today’s podcast, Pastor Lydia and Joe bounce off from the last conversation about sin and dive in on discussing the sins we don’t even really see. It’s difficult to see our sins in the present moment, and just because we’re not aware of it, doesn’t mean it’s not true. Hindsight reveals to us the depth of our sins and how dealing with the gravity of our sinful natures and realities magnifies the cross and the God of grace who came with forgiveness for our sins.