We enter the new year with the last of the messages from our study in Colossians. In this section, Paul closes out his letter to the church in Colossae and sends regards from the believers in prison with him in Rome. While we might be tempted to skip over a list of names like this, each one represents a unique story of salvation and faithfulness which helps us understand our own realities and relationships in light of the Gospel. The good news of Jesus and His love for us fuels a passion for relationships in a world of shallow or apathetic friendships and gives meaning to our labors; it's not just a meaningless grind, everything and everyone is a mission field (including us!)

A lot of times, especially as we head into a new year, we tend to not look back over the previous one. That’s usually because we don’t like to think about the struggles we’ve experienced or are still experiencing. Join us this Sunday as we look at Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians, where he encourages the believers in Thessalonica to live with an attitude of thankfulness even in the midst of our struggles.

This sermon is called “A Christ-Centered Christmas.” It’s meant to be a very practical message on how to negotiate your way through the next few weeks as a disciple of Jesus.

The Christmas season offers many of us the opportunity to be together with people, family, and friends, with whom we often don’t usually have the time just to have an extended hang out. It really is a privilege to be with people we love. Yet, for many, this can be challenging for numerous reasons. Painful histories. Current conflicts. Differing beliefs. There are some who would suggest that it is best to avoid such potentially hazardous situations. However, Christmas is a time to take up your cross and follow Jesus. It is time to grow and to show that our lives are not our own but belong to Him.

My prayer for you is that each of us would find a way to really make Christmas about Christ - not just in the songs we sing and the words that we say but in the sacrifices and the selflessness that Christ showed when He came to earth and became one of us.

Let’s pray that this Christmas would be powerfully Christi-centered.

Join us on Christmas Eve as we celebrate Jesus' birth at 5:30PM

Christmas can be one of those profoundly lonely seasons for people. Grief, abandonment, job changes, personal moral failure, political and global turmoil can leave a person feeling deeply alone and acutely isolated even in the hustle and bustle of the season. In John’s gospel, we encounter several people who feel long forgotten. For example, in John 5, the apostle John describes a man who was paralyzed. He was lying beside a pool that was supposed to provide healing waters. John writes, “One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be healed?” Jesus saw him lying there. This is no accidental encounter. He knew that he had been there a long time. The man replied, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool…”. Do you hear that? I have no one. This man was deeply alone until Jesus showed up. Be sure of this, Jesus didn’t just show up. He came for this man … just like, He came for us. Friends, the story of Christmas, the story of the incarnation, is the remarkable truth that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” God saw us. God came to us. God came for us!

As we celebrate Advent, we are going to rejoice in the glorious truth that “The Word Became Flesh.” I can assure you today that we are no longer alone, unseen, or forgotten. The message of the Incarnation declares to you that God sees you. God knows you. God, in Christ, has come for you. The theme for Advent this week is joy.

Let’s gather together in the Word becoming flesh for you and for me!

Blessings from Pastor Kevin!

Join us on Christmas Eve as we celebrate Jesus. 5:30PM

“In the beginning was the Word…”

Jesus is the One that gives everything its meaning, its purpose, its life. He is the Source, Center, the Goal, the Gift.

Jesus isn’t merely the “Reason for the season.”

Jesus is the Reason for everything.

“God knows how much we need the creation-to-destiny themes of the biblical narrative in order to make sense of our lives, so he lovingly gives those dominant themes right up front… Since God created us to be meaning-makers, he immediately presents us with the wonderful and awful realities that we need to understand in order to make proper sense of who we are and what life is really all about.” Paul David Tripp

This Sunday, our message is taken from Acts 5:1-16. The title of the sermon is “A Necessary Dose of Holy Fear.” We often lose sight of the holiness of God. In our busy lives, we can simply begin to take God for granted and forget that the God we serve is the God who is real. He is “holy, holy, holy”. He is not a good luck charm or an add-on to our list of priorities. He is not the genie in the bottle of our earthly ambitions. He is the One who calls all the nations to bow their knee and surrender their lives to His chosen King, our King, Jesus. He is Yahweh, the Lord God. In Acts 5, we will see a married couple, Ananias and Sapphira, live like God isn’t really holy or truly present. They offer the apostles a very generous gift but they lie about the amount. They pretend that they are giving God everything when they are only giving God a portion. They forget that God isn’t an idol. He is real. So, they learn the hard way that God is not mocked. Friends, we do this. It is easy for us to drift towards God as a conceptual idea rather than a very real present and a truly Holy God. We need the reminder that God is real. God won’t be dismissed. God won’t be treated like all the gods of the nations. He is the true and holy God. So, here for the sake of His glory and for the good of the church, and for the advance of His mission, God reminds them that He is who He is. This Sunday, we are going to look at this text and ask God to remind us to live before Him in holy fear. We will see that holy fear is not only right but it is good. We all need a good dose of holy fear for our joy and for His glory. Looking forward to Sunday. We are taking the Lord’s Supper so prepare your hearts and invite a friend. Pray for one another.

Join us for Christmas Eve Service at Waterbrooke Church - 5:30PM - Details

This Sunday’s sermon was called “Unintimidated”. In Acts 4:32-37, we see the fruit of the collective praying of the early church disciples. The number of the disciples had been growing rapidly. There were now at least 5000 of them (Acts 4:4). With that growth, there came an increased opposition from the temple leaders. The chief priests, the Sadducees, and the temple guard arrested Peter and John and threatened them. Their goal was to stomp out this fast-spreading fire quickly. They hoped to do what they had done earlier. Fill the disciples with fear and watch them scatter. Instead, the opposite happened.

The church immediately went to prayer (Acts 4:23-31). As a response to prayer, the Holy Spirit filled them and the place where they were gathered was shaken. Interestingly, the Holy Spirit didn’t change the religious leaders' threats. The Holy Spirit changed the church. What the Lord intended was to create a community that had fear-resistant characteristics. The community was now characterized by something that the fear of man could not threaten. We studied how the Holy Spirit uses the gospel to produce in us the opposite of what fear intends to produce and that creates a community that cannot be intimidated. Pray for God to build these characteristics into our lives at Waterbrooke Church and to build a movement of grace that reaches far beyond the walls of our church building.

Thank you for listening today, friends. If you want to connect with me or our church, go to waterbrooke.church and click contact Us.

Download the Sermon notes HERE

Watch this Message HERE

This Sunday, we examined the subject of praying for courage as we seek to share the hope of Jesus with others.

In Acts 4, Peter and John are remarkably bold in speaking about Christ to the religious leaders who are threatening them. These are the very same religious leaders who had recently arranged and successfully carried out the crucifixion of Jesus.

The boldness of the disciples was not natural.

It was supernatural. The timid Galilean disciples had recently fled in fear. Now, they faced the threats of the religious leaders with amazing courage (Acts 4:13). So much so, that even their enemies were blown away. What we see after this, however, is that Peter and John immediately went back to the others and they joined together in prayer. No bravado. No “We showed them!” No post-touchdown taunting in the end zone. Courage required the help of the community, and specifically, the help of a community on its knees. Courage in evangelism is a gift from God. Let’s learn how "Praying Together for Courage" (our sermon title) is one of the core privileges God has given us as His people with one another. Let's worship our King Jesus. Remember, He reigns!

Pastor Kevin Dibbley

To find out more about Waterbrooke Church, please go to www.waterbrooke.church.