Deerbrook Covenant

We have been given life so we can experience the love of God and learn to love others. We are to live in such a way that we give God glory in all we do. A truly meaningful way to give God glory is to help others follow Jesus. This Sunday, we complete our Spring series about Discipleship with a look at the gospel of Mark chapter 9. Following Jesus means seeing the Kingdom of God among us in all its...

Much of our lives are driven by questions. Questions about what we should do, who we should spend time with, how we should spend our time, where we are headed, what we believe and the list goes on. As disciple makers of Jesus, we can listen and help people uncover both practical life questions and important big God questions.  In this Sunday’s sermon, we will explore Mark 12:18-34 and see how Jesu...

The goal of our current discipleship sermon series is to encourage, challenge and equip  you  to go out and make disciples of Jesus. To help someone else follow Jesus. Our hope is that each of us will be in life-of-life discipleship relationships, no matter where we are in our walk with Jesus. Perhaps, we need to learn more about Jesus. Perhaps, we can encourage another in their faith. But make no...

As disciple-makers, we are instructed to share God’s Word with people in our lives. Sometimes the Word is received and it produces an abundance of good fruit. Other times, the Word is taken, destroyed, or stifled resulting in no fruit.  This week we will look at Jesus’ parable of the Sower and the way God wants His truth to be planted in good soil to produce a multitude of spiritual fruit. We hope...

As the disciples followed Jesus, he modeled how to love God and love others. He shared his life with his disciples “so that they  might be with him , and that they  might be sent out  to preach and cast out demons.” Eventually, the disciples spread the kingdom and reached people just like Jesus would have,  because  they had been with Jesus and they were obedient to his call. All for the sake of t...

We are reading the gospel of Mark this Spring. We are looking for clues about discipleship, our calling to help others follow Jesus. After Jesus called his first disciples, he began to preach and people were astonished. His authority was asserted as he performed a great number of healings. But as his popularity rose, so did objections to his practices. Jesus responded with persuasive arguments abo...

The second quote of Jesus in the book of Mark is, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.”  As we continue our exploration of discipleship, we are going to look at what Jesus did when he invited the first disciples to follow him and their response.  Through this narrative, Jesus models what we can do to begin to fulfill Jesus commission, “Go therefore and make disciples of all natio...

This week we will begin our journey into making disciples of Jesus. Over the next 8 weeks we will discuss the spiritual practice of discipleship as we study the Gospel of Mark. This Sunday, we will unpack Mark 1:14-15 where Jesus says,“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” We will look at how this verse is a foundational component to the desti...

This Sunday, we will conclude our April series  Pursuing Impact Together . As we pursue God, we experience the gifts of the Holy Spirit that glorify God when we serve others. Our impact in the World is often measured by our care for others. As our society continues to spin into division and unrest, it seems everyone agrees that hatred and conflict cause suffering. We may wonder  why  is love of ot...

This Sunday, we will talk about opportunities for each of us to volunteer to serve in local mission. We will hear from Rachel Gibson who serves in a college discipleship ministry at University Nebraska-Lincoln. Human beings have many needs in common. We have physical & financial needs. We have psychological & relational concerns that need to be addressed. We must grow and mature to survive...

This month, we are discussing our congregation’s vision of  Pursuing Impact Together.  This means we pursue God and his Kingdom. We seek his presence in worship on Sundays. In addition, we aspire to increase our impact in the World. Impacting the World for God’s glory is both simple and profound. We make a difference every day when we use our talents and resources to help meet the needs of others....

Welcome to Spring. Welcome to a season of new growth, warming temperatures and sunshine. As the calendar turns to April, we will discuss the vision of Deerbrook. Our vision is  Pursuing Impact Together.  This means we pursue God himself. We seek the presence of God in private devotional times and in conversations with caring friends.  We seek his presence in worship on Sunday mornings. As we seek...

This is it; this is our weekend. Good Friday & Easter Sunday. Since the beginning of time, God has orchestrated his plan to save his people. The creation of the World was tainted by the disobedience of humanity. Everywhere we look are signs of pride, lust, greed and anger. Nations at war, humans in conflict with one another, separated from God and one another by our sins. And then God the Fath...

Dear Friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world…      1 Peter 2:11 The “World” is how the New Testament refers to the fallen, broken society and system in which we live with all of its assumptions, deceptions, ideologies, power structures, and “isms” that are contrary to the Word of God and the life to which Jesus has called us. The World, instead of drawing out the best in us, ofte...

The journey to a life of grace, truth, beauty and fulfillment is not an easy one. The Scriptures warn us that there is an unholy trinity that seeks constantly to lead us astray and to sabotage our progress: The Devil, the Flesh, and the World. This is what we are up against. In previous weeks we have seen that we have a real Enemy, and the Enemy’s chief strategy is to lie about the nature of reali...

We have discussed recently that defeating the devil’s lies is done by prayer, the Word of God and living among the  community of believers. We surround ourselves with people who believe and tell us the truth. He whispers lies. We shout back the truth. Well, the truth is, there is a way to defeat even the most stubborn sin in our lives! We don’t mention it much. Worried about legalism, we give in t...

It seems everyone we know is searching for a better life. More possessions, more pleasure, more freedom. The world offers to fulfill us with more stuff at the expense of our souls. We should not bet tricked. The old ways of personal fulfillment don’t work. We are preaching through the second section of the best-selling book,  Live No Lies,  by John Mark Comer .  He understands that the devil’s lie...

This Sunday, we begin our Lent series based on Scripture and the best-selling book  Live No Lies  by John Mark Comer .  The content is an extension of our  Overcoming The World  discussion. Jesus came to destroy the work of the devil. In a world of senseless violence and unrestricted immorality, how can we still think that our society is getting better? Ideas are assumptions about reality, and whe...

This Sunday, with our fourth talk on  Overcoming The World , we will discuss  Love & Sexuality . We hope to  begin  an honest conversation about how to love people we may disagree with and perhaps even fear. In addition, we will discuss modern views and the Bible’s teaching on sexuality. We acknowledge that expressions of sexuality effect nearly all of our families. We understand how confusing...

As followers of Jesus, our challenge is to overcome the World. Many of us are given the role of parenting, helping our children climb the mountain of faith and maturity. In 21 years as a pastor, I have never spoken on parenting.  Who am I to give advice?  My goodness. And then, we discover the Bible is full of stories of complicated families,  with advice on love & wisdom. Teach our children t...

We understand that our hearts have a great potential for darkness. The New Testament writers have numerous reminders of how we are  not  to live. They define living well as when 'our  spiritual  nature triumphs over our  sinful  nature.' One difficulty to following Jesus' commands is that modern culture redefines right & wrong with whatever is shocking and sensual. The World spins...

During the worship service, we will begin our new series “Overcoming the World.” Over the next 4 weeks we will discuss ‘light & darkness,’ ‘the sinful nature vs. the spiritual nature,’ ‘raising our children well,’ and finally ‘identity, sexuality & love.’  Our hope is to live victoriously by God’s power & grace and to overcome personal and societal issues as the light of the World. Thi...

Because of Christ, we have gained access to our heavenly Father (Eph. 2:18). It really is a privilege to pray to the Lord! And that is our hope for the next week at Deerbrook as we invite all of us to join together in the joy of prayer. The Scriptures have many examples of OT prayers and NT prayers. Our text this Sunday is Psalm 143. It demonstrates that our trust in the Lord starts with our depen...

It is our tradition to call our people to prayer in the month of January. So, this Sunday, we will discuss Paul’s beautiful prayer for the believers in Ephesus. Paul does not pray for comfort, success & prosperity. Instead, Paul prays consistently that God would pour out his Spirit on the new believers so that they may know God better. Paul also prays that they (we) would know the hope that Go...

In times of transition and change, particularly in seasons of loss or fresh beginnings, it can be very helpful in our journey to pause and take spiritual inventory, to take time to listen to the voice of the Spirit, to look back and lighten the load and to look to the future with thankfulness and hope. In today’s teaching I want to share a tool I have used for the past thirty years to help me take...