Waterbrooke Christian Church

Happy Independence Day weekend, church family! The fourth of July weekend is all about celebrating freedom. As citizens, we celebrate our freedom from tyranny and oppression. One of the most famous lines that I am sure many of you know is this one: “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” This has been attributed to Thomas Jefferson, but it was originally stated by John Philpott Curran in 1790. Think about that: The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. As Christians, we have been granted incredible freedom in Christ. We have been granted freedom from guilt and from condemnation. We have been delivered from the power of sin, Satan, and death. Yet, here is the reminder that we all need. Freedom requires vigilance. The apostle Paul gives this exhortation in Galatians 5:13, “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” The way that we fight for the enjoyment of the freedom that we have receive in Christ is by de

Over the past several weeks, we have been studying the Biblical teaching on love in our summer series entitled “Summer of Love.” What our hope in doing this series has been is to reorient our hearts and our minds around a truly biblical view of love that without a doubt is in direct contradiction to the messages about love that we see in the world around us. This Sunday, our sermon is called Let Your Love Be Genuine. It is taken from Romans 12:9-13.   A friend of mine was giving a lecture this week at a church in Southern California and he quoted from a Wiccan (witchcraft) saying. The saying is this: “ ‘An ye harm none, do what ye will’ (or, ‘If you do no harm, do as you please’).” That sounds like love. Love is essentially doing no harm. Otherwise, its open season on whatever you want to do. That definitely is not the love of Christ for His people and it cannot be how we as Christians understand true and genuine love. Yet many Christians embrace essentially that view of love. Romans 12 begins with the exhort

While I was away this week speaking at a men’s event up in Canada, I got the news of the horrible shooting of two politicians and their spouses here in the Twin Cities. I looked up the news and a couple of things immediately struck me. First, before I had read anything, I thought to myself: ‘I’ve met that guy.” I don’t know when or where or if I really did but that was my first reaction. Then when I read the article, I read the awful wicked reality that this man professed to be an evangelical Christian, had pastored, and had been on missions. It sickened my stomach. I have since heard of people who know his family. Pray for them and pray for the families brutalized by his violence.  Well, it just happens to be, in God’s good providence, that my message which was planned over a month ago for this Sunday is from Matthew 5:43-48. My sermon title is called “Love Like Your Father.” Friends, we need to be reminded regularly that when we think we can play God with our lives or other people’s lives, we are least like

When we read of God pouring out judgment on the nations in the Old Testament, we can sometimes miss the full picture of what is happening. Some preachers even suggest we should "unhitch" the Old Testament from the New Testament. This Sunday, we will be covering the book of Nahum 1:1-15. Around 100 years after God sent Jonah to Nineveh, He sent Nahum back to Nineveh and prophesied again of their destruction, which finally took place.  We will be diving into why God's wrath is real and is crucial to understanding His great love through Jesus.   Find out more about Waterbrooke Church at www.waterbrooke.church  

This Sunday, we are going to continue our series called Summer of Love. One of the great encouragements in the call to love one another as God has loved us is that the source of our love is the eternal and immutable Triune God. Agape love is extremely challenging. Loving others as Christ has loved us is not something that we can merely “will” into existence. Loving those who have wronged us or neglected us can seem impossible. It is impossible if it’s left to us. Here’s the good news: Agape love is actually the overflow of our relationship to God. It is Christ in us who loves through us. The impulse in our hearts to love one another is something that flows out of an eternal impulse with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The early church father, Augustine famously said these words: “Wherever there is Love, there is a Trinity. A Lover (God the Father), a Beloved (God the Son) and a Fountain of Love (the Holy Spirit).” We are going to dive into the depths of Triune love this Sunday and discov

The second message in our series, Summer of Love is based on the Scripture passage 1 Peter 1:22-25 and it is called “Love is Heart Work”.  So often, we are reactionary rather than proactive in our most important relationships. We ponder in our minds how we can continue to love people that we find hard to love or how we should respond in the multiplicity of perplexing relational scenarios we find ourselves. We regularly think “What should we do?” instead of “What should we be?” It is interesting that the Scriptures do not give us a great deal of specific “how-to’s” in learning to love or to forgive, to build or to restore relationships. Proverbs 4:23 reads, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” This week, we will see in our study of God’s Word is that the key to learning to love in a godly, Christ-exalting way is to seek God’s work on the inner self rather than the behavioral self. The hard work is the heart-work and that’s where God loves to go to work by His grace. Le

This summer, we will begin our summer sermon series called “Summer of Love: How God’s Love Compels Us to Love Others.” Waterbrooke’s mission statement reads: “Waterbrooke seeks to be a gospel-centered, multi-ethnic community that is captivated by Christ, compelled to love others, and called to make disciples to the glory of God.” How do we as Waterbrooke Church grow in God’s love and grace such that it is our Holy Spirit-given impulse to reach out to love others not because of anything in them, but because of Christ in us? Jesus clearly said in John 13:34-35 that the driving force of love in the lives of Christians should be the mark that clearly distinguishes us from the world around us. He declared, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this will all people know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Join us in praying that the Spirit of God would grow us in our knowledge of Jesus’ love for us so th

This week, we'll begin a four-part journey through the Old Testament book of Jonah.  I know you may be thinking, "what can we possibly learn about this book that we haven't already learned from VeggieTales" but, believe me, the depths of God's grace are deeper than the waters from which Jonah cried out to God for mercy; and this, as we'll see this Sunday, is a message that the world desperately needs to hear...it's a message that Jonah needed to hear...it's a message that we need to hear. In Christ, Andy Keppel, Elder

View & Download NOTES This Sunday, May 11th, was Mother’s Day. Interestingly, the background to our study in Acts 12 is that a prayer meeting is being held at the home of a mother -  John Mark’s mother. It reminds us that so often in life, somewhere in the background a mom has been praying, and women have been faithfully praying not only for their families but for the family of God.  Acts 12 is a time of great persecution against the Christians in Jerusalem. One of the apostles, James, is executed by Herod Agrippa. Peter, the apostle, is arrested and faces the same threat. The Christians in Jerusalem are obviously rattled by these events. Yet, it’s clear that God is not rattled at all. The God to whom we pray in times of deep crisis is clearly on the throne. His purposes are being advanced. He will build his church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.  Prayer is driven by an awareness that there is no event in our lives that is outside of the Father’s providence and will not ultimately wo

This Sunday, studied Acts 11. This is a crucial chapter in the progress of King Jesus’ mission to advance His kingdom to the ends of the earth. The mission of the gospel takes a decisively new direction for mission: the Gentile world. The center for missionary activity shifts from Jerusalem to Antioch. Adjustments to expectations need to happen everywhere.  If there is anything that is true about the mission of God and the Christian life, it is this: Expect the Unexpected. Most of us don’t like an unpredictable life. We resist adaptation and change, but when God is on the move, we need to be ready. As the old gospel goes: “When the Spirit says move, you gotta move.”      The reality of the Christian life is that God often works in ways that we never expected, and we would rather not go. He moves us out of our comfort and into his transformative mission, where He changes the world while He transforms us. Amy Carmichael, the famous missionary to India, once prayed this prayer: “Do anything, Lord, that will fit

One of the great missionaries in church history was Hudson Taylor, the founder of China Inland Mission (1832-1905). Taylor was famous for his impact on global missions. One of the things that stood out about Hudson Taylor was his commitment to what is called “Indigeneity.” He wanted the gospel to go to the Chinese people and make them Christians in the truest sense. He didn’t want cultural adaptation but true gospel transformation. He said wanted: “Christian Chinese—true Christians, but Chinese in every sense of the word.” If you ever saw pictures of Hudson Taylor, you will know that he went out of his way not to bend others to his culture but to bend himself to the culture of the Chinese in order that they might come to know Christ. If there was going to be cultural adaptation, it would be on his part. This reminds me of the apostle Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 9, “I have become all things to all people, that by all means, I might win some.” This Sunday’s sermon is taken from Acts 10:1-48 and is called “Be

Here at Waterbrooke, we have been studying the New Testament book of Acts. This Sunday, we are in Acts 9:32-43 as we celebrate Easter Sunday and the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. The entire book of Acts is both a demonstration and a defense of the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Dr. Brandon Crowe from Westminster Theological Seminary writes: “The resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the key emphases of Acts, and this helps us appreciate the theological unity of the entire book.” I would say that the resurrection is THE key emphasis of the book of Acts. The resurrected Christ has transformed His timid disciples into bold apostles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Their changed lives and their bold ministries are proof of the resurrection. The pouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is proof that Jesus is both risen and reigning. The conversion of multitudes of people is proof of the power of the risen Christ, beginning to change humanity. Saul of Tarsus’ radical conversion is clearly decla

I have said repeatedly that one of the joys that I get from being pastor of Waterbrooke Church is how many people are on mission together in our congregation. Whether it is locally or globally, Waterbrooke has continually had people who go into prisons, or motorcycle venues or restaurants and bars or to the nations to share Christ. We have people reaching Asia and people serving in women’s centers and women’s prisons. The One of the new exciting ministries that we have begun is the Refugee Ministry Team that is currently begun to serve an Afghani family. Many of you are truly seeking to be a light in your workplaces, neighborhoods and homes. In our passage this week, Acts 9:26-31, Luke shows that missions happens because of the local church and the local church grows through missionary engagement. Missionary Mack Stiles who along with his wife have served in church ministry in Dubai and in Iraq was once asked by an individual here in America, “What can we do for you, Mack?” Mack replied, “The best thing that

View Sermon Notes Have you ever been really wrong? I mean really, really wrong? Have you ever been outspoken or opinionated about a subject and then made a huge discovery that radically shifted your position? Imagine in our ongoing study of the book of Acts, just what it must have been like for Saul of Tarsus. In an instant, on the road to Damascus, Saul discovered that he was completely wrong about Jesus. Imagine how that felt. He had not only been outspoken against the Church and its message about Christ, but he was violent in his opposition to Jesus. He had approved of the stoning of Stephen to death. He had arrested and beaten and imprisoned numerous men and women. He had threatened many and was bent on stomping out this movement called, The Way. Then, he met Jesus. And he realized that he was wrong. All discipleship begins with an acknowledgment: I was wrong. Really wrong. For some, we have to acknowledge that our lives were filled with sin and willful rebellion. For others, like Saul, our lives were f

Welcome our Guest speaker, Brian Thomas as he brings us the word from Mark 12:28-34

When we come across “what can man do to me” in our Bible reading, it sounds a little flippant doesn’t it? Men and women do an awful lot of terrible things to other men and women. There is plenty to fear in this fallen world. But this phrase came from David while people were actively chasing him with the intent to kill him. How can he say such a thing? Stop running for a second and you will see what man can do to you! One of the wonderful things about the Psalms is how honest they are about the struggles of life. In Psalm 56 we’ll see the hero David, of “David and Goliath” fame, admitting he’s afraid of very real and present danger. But we’ll also see how David doesn’t rely on his ingenuity, strength, or past successes to alleviate his fear, instead he runs to the God who has rescued him time and time again. Join us Sunday to learn from David how to deal with the fears in your own life, even if you aren’t being actively chased by people trying to kill you.   In Christ, Kevin Campbell, Elder

Our sermon this Sunday was called “Two Blind Men”. In Acts 9:1-18, we will see the radical conversion of a Christ-hating Pharisee named Saul of Tarsus. The conversion is so stunning that Ananias, a relatively anonymous Christ-loving disciple at Damascus, has trouble getting his head around it. Yet, Christ chose Ananias to be the very instrument he wanted to bring Saul to Christ and to commission Saul for the mission of the gospel.     Here is something that we perpetually need to get our heads and hearts around: Unlikely people are used by Christ to save unlikely people and to set them on mission for the gospel. Christ purposely chooses the nobodies of this world to advance the kingdom of His Son. 1 Corinthians 1:27-29 reveals how this shaped Paul’s understanding of how God does his mission: “But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things

In the book of Acts, Luke is reinforcing for us what he repeatedly emphasized in the gospel of Luke: Our God has come to rescue and to restore the outcast and the sinner. It is one of the most beautiful truths of the Christian faith that God loved us while we were yet sinners. God seeks to restore those who have rebelled against him and those who have been really far from Him. God saves the least likely. Over the next few Sundays, we are going to see in the book of Acts how God saves individuals who are outsiders and/or really deep sinners (ie.,Saul of Tarsus). Up until now, the stories of conversion to the Christian faith have been groups of people turning to Christ from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria. Now, God goes after individuals who would be seen as far outside the circle of His people or far from any hope of coming to faith in Jesus Christ. It is meant to be a gamechanger for the church. God loves to save the outsider, the outcast, the sinner. It’s a gamechanger for those who feel that their sin and br

This Sunday, we studied Acts 8:1-25. After the stoning of Stephen, absolute mayhem breaks out. Acts 8:3 reads, “But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.” Isn’t that awful and yet wonderful at the same time? What is happening is traumatic to those believers yanked out of their homes and thrown into prison. But… what is clear is that God is up to something. He has plans for that persecutor of the church, Saul of Tarsus. Saul is in God’s sights. There is a simple principle that you and I need to grasp as disciples of Jesus: The mission of the church always happens in the midst of the mayhem and madness of the world. But more importantly, the mayhem and madness of the world must always serve the mission of the church and its Master, King Jesus.  What difference would it make in our lives if we, as Christians, saw all the uncontrollable and often incredibly difficult situations in our lives and ministries as ultimately having to

One of the things that we regularly see in the customer service industry is articles on how to improve customer response times. For example, in one study, it was revealed that 70% of the people who evaluated customer service said that the quicker a business responded and resolved customer issues dictated whether they were viewed as having good quality customer service. Your response times indicated how valuable your customers were to you. This Sunday, our message was from Acts 7:17-43, we are not going to talk about improving customer response times. We are going to look at improving our Christ response times. In Luke 19, there is this great story of Zaccheus, a tax collector, climbing up in a tree to see Jesus as he passed by in the crowds. Luke writes, “And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.’ So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully” (Luke 19:5-6). That picture is a picture of someone who is eager to