Waypoint Omaha

This week, Pastor Matthew continued on with our “Take Me To Church” series with a sermon about slowed down spirituality.

A shallow discipleship is working against us as we try to navigate the complex issues of the world today, and we need to fix that. We all have issues beneath the surface that influence the way we think, feel, and behave. God wants to transform us, in the deepest parts of us – and in order to do that we need to slow down to be with Him.

Jesus wants to form His life in us, and He wants to transform our entire beings – including the “roots” of who we are. The Bible has a lot to say about our inner-being.

“Christianity in the Western world is often marginalized as a life accessory rather than the means of powerful life transformation” – Rich Villodas

A huge part of the problem is that we live within a culture of speed, shallowness, and distraction. We live in a frenzy of hurry and exhaustion – and as long as we remain in that place we can not become the people that God is calling us to be. Our inability to sit in silence is keeping us from hearing God.

God invites us to a different way of being in the world. He is not in a rush, and if we want to meet with Him, it’s imperative we slow down to be with Him.

“It’s only when we slow down our lives that we can catch up to God” – N.T. Wright

We can not love people well when we are in a hurry. The solution to our hurry culture is to practice a slowed-down spirituality. We must slow down to be with God, to be centered and still before Him, and to be present to Him throughout the day. We are called to live life at a different pace, with different priorities.

The Bible is full of people who slowed down to be with God; Moses, Joshua, Mary, John the Baptist, and Jesus.

“Solitude is to be preserved not as a luxury, but as a necessity. Not for perfection so much as for simple survival in the life God has given you” - Thomas Merton

The rhythms of a slowed down spirituality empower us to not only survive in the world, but to thrive within it. God is inviting us into a reality that fosters deep, authentic relationship with Him and others. We must walk at His pace and develop rhythms of silence and solitude in prayer.

This week, Pastor Matthew launched our “Take me to Church” series.

Our world is broken, and Jesus has a lot to say about it if we slow down enough to listen and hear His voice. We can only make sense of things in and through Jesus.

Pastor Matthew had three main sermon points:

1. The story of the Bible is all about God being with us.

From Genesis to Revelation, we see that God wants to be with us. God has always wanted to dwell with His creation.

2. The story of the Bible stresses the importance of the temple.

In the Old Testament, the tabernacle represented God’s presence among His chosen people – it was, like the Garden, the place where God and man could be together.

Then, in the New Testament we see that Jesus is the temple. He is God’s dwelling place. Jesus was not simply with God, He was God – a God that is all about mercy.

3. The followers of Jesus are being built into a spiritual house (the temple).

The blood of Jesus cleanses the new temple (us!). Why? So He can dwell in us. This is a truth with vast implications. First, that God wants to display His glory through us. We are to be signs to the world of what is to come. We are now the place where heaven and earth meet.

The church is the hope of the world because Christ is in us. We are a part of one another, and the Bible makes that clear. Because of this we need to stop cutting each other up, stop comparing ourselves with one another, and simply obey God and bless one another.

Waypoint is not the church, but it is part of the church – the body of Christ, and all of us have assignments from God. Over this next series we will be looking at this assignment – the assignment of Waypoint Church. We are going to unpack what that means theologically and practically here in Omaha and in the rest of the world.

This week, Pastor Matthew shared the vision of Groups Sunday.

He reminded us who we are, and why we do the things we do.

We are a Spirit-led, Biblically based family of God who is committed to worship Jesus and live out Kingdom values in the context of community. We are called to make disciples and plant churches while embracing beneath-the-surface spirituality and a multi-ethnic church. We aim to impact and transform people in every sphere of our society, as well as the nations of the world for His glory.

The Lord is calling us to move forward in our vision, as now is the time for the body of Christ to mobilize. We need to lift our eyes from everything that has been weighing us down, and instead look to the Lord and His purposes. We need to get our eyes off ourselves and onto the harvest, because people need Jesus.

We say it every week, but we are a people who are passionate about Jesus and His purposes in the earth. We make disciples who encounter God, make disciples, and live on mission.
More than anything else in the world, people need Jesus – and they meet Him through the church; a body of believers who lay their lives down for one another daily.

We live out and express our discipleship calling within the five circles of church: me and Jesus, life on life discipleship, Life Groups, the Church Gathered, and Life on Mission.

Why should we be in a group:

1. We need to have a deep and rich relationship with God, and a deep and rich relationship with one another.
2. We live in a culture that needs to be reached with the gospel of Jesus again. The best thing we can do for our nation is to be like Jesus – to love and lay our lives down.
3. One of the best places for discipleship and spiritual formation is groups. Jesus’s Discipleship model was never without mission.
4. It’s the best place to care for each other.
5. It’s the New Testament Model.

It is in relationship with God and others that fills us and support us. Relationships with others are difficult, but they are essential, and they are how we grow.

This week, Pastor Alex shared a message on the topic of pride and humility.

If we will learn to walk in humility like Jesus did, we will learn to walk in authority like Jesus did.

We see the story of pride begin all the way back in Genesis, at the beginning. Adam and Eve wanted to be like God; to go from created to creator. This desire to elevate themselves is what brought sin into the world. Pride has always and continues to lead to separation.

Humility, on the other hand, promotes less of ourselves, and submits to God and others. It takes us from the center of our own universes, and places the Lord in that position.

Pride promotes independence, and humility promotes dependence. Humility is the dependence on the truth and not your truth. It recognizes there is more to this world than ourselves.

Humility will lead to reconciliation, as seen by the example of Jesus.. Jesus humbled Himself in obedience to the point of death. This was the birthplace of reconciliation within the world, and we learn to walk in those same ways.

The less we look like Christ, the more we promote the world. Jesus asks us to bare our cross daily, to deny ourselves and to follow Him. In order to do this we must take the position of a servant.

How do we humble ourselves and show Jesus to this world? Pastor Alex suggested a four-fold approach:

1. Communion. Remembering the sacrifice of the Lord – humility to the point of death.
2. Prayer. The acknowledgement that we need God in our lives. Set an alarm for 2:05pm each day to pray Philippians 2:5.
3. Fasting. A choice to humble ourselves and come before the Lord.
4. Serve. Laying our lives down for the benefit of others.

Let’s be a church that humbles ourselves before the Lord and shows the world Jesus. What does it look like to be Jesus in a world where it’s so easy to be us?

This week, Pastor Luke finished our Hebrews 11 faith series with verses 32-40 in a sermon titled “Heroes.” Pastor Luke broke his sermon down into three sections:

1. The weak but strong heroes (v32-35)

This passage goes over several very flawed heroes of the faith:

Gideon, a man who destroyed idols and altars but was also a coward who was weak and full of doubt.
Barak, who beat the Canaanites but also lived in fear; only going into battle when he had the help of Deborah.
Samson who defeated Ammonites, but lived a wild and rebellious life.
Jephthah who defeated the Ammonites, but made a sinful vow that resulted in the death of his daughter.
David who was a great King, a giant killer and a man of faith, but he also slept with another man’s wife, and then had him killed to cover up his indiscretion.

This passage covers a list of flawed people who did not have clean records. They did not keep the law perfectly. Their confidence was not in themselves, but in a flawless God and therefore this list is more about God than it is about them – about having our faith aligned with Him. The life of faith is one where we recognize our strengths, leverage our weaknesses, and depend on God with all of it.

The life of faith is not so much about our qualifications, but about God’s qualifications.

We need to recognize our weaknesses and therefore our need to God. As C.S. Lewis says, true humility is not thinking less of ourselves but thinking of ourselves less.

2. The other heroes (v36-38)

This passage then goes on to talk about various heroes of faith that were tortured and killed in all kinds of ways for their beliefs. They were marked by their conviction and courage. This passage begs the hard question: would we be willing to die for Jesus if the circumstance arose?

The call to Jesus is to give up everything to follow Him.

The difference between a head knowledge and a conviction is the action that puts feet to it, which often is most clear in the face of trials and hardships.

In this hour we need to assess our convictions and our courage.

God wants us to be people who truly live for His glory, and in order to do that our lives must be so aligned to His purposes.

3. The ultimate hero (v39-40).

There is an author of this story called life and He is the Creator of all things.

All of these heroes of faith did not get to see the culmination of what was then to come; Jesus – His life, death, and resurrection. But we do. We get to live in an age where we can not just know about Him, but we can also know Him intimately and live for Him passionately.

This week, Pastor Jermaine continued on with our Hebrews 11 faith series with the story of Rahab, starting in verse 30.

Rahab is referenced three times in the New Testament, and is one of only two women in this Hebrews 11 passage. Like all the rest, she is mentioned because of her great faith.

Through the story and example of Rahab we see that God has a way of meeting, using and encountering people where they are at. He will use people even as they are in process for His purposes. God can still accomplish His perfect plan through imperfect people.

Rahab risked everything for her faith – she was undaunted by her circumstances. Her faith was in the majesty and mercy of God.

Rahab had unorthodox faith, an undaunted faith, and an undeniable faith. Her faith was sincere and authentic, and we can tell because of her actions. The book of James tells us that faith without works is dead, and we show our faith by our works. We are not just saved to be good, we are saved to do good. We do good because we believe in the Lord and what He is doing in the world. We do good for His glory.

Rahab was a woman who went from immorality to immortality, and our story can be thus so.

This week, Pastor Matthew continued with our Hebrews 11 faith series with verses 23 – 27.

The way forward for Moses, his family, and the whole Israelite nation was faith in God. Faith that He would fulfill His promises, and ultimately faith in who He is. Similarly, we move forward in our culture by faith and not fear. Our obedience in faith today affects people tomorrow.

If you belong to Jesus, you must be part of the church. We are created to lay our lives down for one another. We also must believe that Jesus is greater than the treasures of America. We must throw off all that entangles us.

God wants to teach us how to wait on Him – He must become more as we become less. We are to live in faith and be faithful, trading our areas of fear for faith in Him.

This week, Pastor Luke continued on with our Hebrews 11 series with verses 17-19 and the story of Abraham.

Abraham is a huge character throughout the narrative of Scripture, and Pastor Luke used his story to make three primary points about testing and growing in faith:

1. God tests His people

God works more like a crock-pot than a microwave. The testing of God is good and necessary for us to become more like Jesus. The goal of spiritual maturity is to look, act, and respond like Jesus in each and every situation.

We need to make a distinction between tests, temptations, and trials. God tests us to grow our faith, Satan tempts us to destroy our faith, and trials exist because of the poor decisions of ourselves or other people.

Maturity comes when we turn our focus away from consuming and complaining and move it towards serving, loving and helping others.

There is a proving in what we profess, and that is shown and developed through testing.

2. The necessary parts of testing.

There were many times within Scripture that Abraham failed – he lied twice about Sarah being his wife, and he became impatient with waiting on God for a son (which resulted in him sleeping with Hagar, and having Ishmael).

In each of these situations Abraham essentially became a functional atheist. He tried to control the situation, and forgot his reliance on God.

There are two necessary parts to God’s test: He’s going to confront your need to control, and it’s going to be hard. It’s simple, but it’s hard, and we grow through our hardships.

Anxiety is temporary atheism – a suspension of our faith in God.

3. The key to passing the test

Abraham obeyed even when he did not know what would happen. The key for us also is to surrender to God’s goodness and obey the last thing that he told us to do.

Trusting God and following Jesus is not easy, but it’s worth it. We want to be people who are both faithful and full of faith. We need to surrender control, trust in the goodness of God, and obey what He has spoken.