Jesus is the answer

In Colossians 2:8 Paul warns about the dangers of the base and elementary philosophy of the world. What are those principles? He is non-specific, but the most basic philosophy of the world is this — anything must be made supreme so that God and Christ will be minimized. The base philosophy of the world it […]

Sermon: Why the Gospel?

Why Evangelism?Colossians 2January 29, 2023 All Steve wanted to do was clean his fish tank. He had no idea of the problems that would create for him. Here’s a report of the incident: [He] was trying to get rid of a colony of zoanthids — a relative of corals and sea anemones — that was […]

What are you thinking?

What we think is important. I don’t mean that our opinions about various topics are important. They may or may not be important; but I mean that the content of our thoughts — what we are thinking about in any given moment is important. The millions of thoughts that travel around our six-inch diameter […]

Evangelistic grace and boldness

When Paul instructs the Colossians about evangelism — and asks for them to pray for him in his gospel efforts as well — he encourages them to be wise and gracious in the way they both conduct themselves and speak. It takes discernment to know when to speak the gospel and it takes prayerful preparation […]

Sermon: Excel Still More – Evangelism

Excelling Still More: EvangelismColossians 4:2-6February 6, 2022 Randy Newman introduces his book Bringing the Gospel Home: Witnessing to Family Members, Close Friends, and Others Who Know You Well by writing this: When I informed a friend I was writing a book on witnessing to family, he told me he had the perfect chapter titles: Chapter […]

Sermon: Thankful Hearts Giving Thanks

Thankful Hearts Giving Thanks Colossians 3:15-17 November 22, 2020 Rudyard Kipling is one of the most well-known British writers from the 19th and 20th centuries. He penned many poems and such classic stories as How the Leopard Got His Spots and The Jungle Book. His writing made him famous and wealthy. A newspaper reporter approached […]

Sermon: What Are You Thinking?

What Are You Thinking? Colossians 3:1-4 April 26, 2020 What we think is important. I don’t mean that our opinions about various topics are important — they may or may not be important — but that what we are thinking about in any given moment is important. The millions of thoughts that travel around our […]

Sermon: How Shall We Pray?

How Shall We Pray? — A Prayer for the Future Colossians 1:9-12 August 18, 2019 We have remembered our church’s past. And we have remembered God’s faithfulness in our past. We have given thanks to God for His care for us over the past 40 years. Now what? As we said last Sunday, by the […]

Sermon: Life Against the Flesh (Pt 4)

Life in the Spirit, Life Against the Flesh (Pt. 4) Colossians 3:10-17 October 21, 2018 How can one become good? Only by God’s transforming work — which is what Colossians 3 has said — 3:1 — “you have been raised up” (i.e., God raised you) 3:3 — “your life is hidden with Christ” 3:4 — […]

Sermon: Life Against the Flesh (Pt 3)

Life in the Spirit, Life Against the Flesh (Pt 3) Colossians 3:1-9 October 14, 2018 Several years after inventing the radar, Sir Robert Watson Watt was arrested in Canada for speeding. He’d been caught, ironically enough, by a radar trap. To commemorate this infamous event in his life, he wrote a brief poem about himself: […]

Sermon: Life Against the Flesh (Pt 2)

Life in the Spirit, Life Against the Flesh (Pt 2) Colossians 3:1-17 October 7 2018 “In April, 1983, Robert Vierling of Winchester, Missouri was found in his bed, crushed to death by his sixteen-foot, one hundred pound, pet Burmese python. Vierling’s wife said he had complete trust in the snake and often played with it […]

Sermon: What Christ Has Done

“What Christ Has Done” Colossians 2:11-15 May 1, 2016 Author and publisher Leonard Woolf (husband of Virginia Woolf) lamented near the end of his life, “I see clearly that I have achieved practically nothing. In the world today and the history of the human anthill during the past five to seven years would have been […]

What God looks like

When I was in high school, I worked for a grocery store where an impressively large man used to shop with some regularity. One day someone asked me, “You know who that is, don’t you?” “No.” “That’s Keith Fahnhorst; he’s an offensive tackle for the San Francisco 49ers!” From then on, this football fan was […]

Sermon: We Give Thanks to God

We Give Thanks to God Colossians 1:3-8 October 13, 2013 Picture Charlie Brown sitting at a desk and writing. In the second panel he utters the single word, “Rats,” and crumples up the paper. It joins a large pile of crumpled up pieces of paper in the third panel. And in the final panel he […]

Who’s who in the early church

The apostle Paul’s letters often conclude with lists of greetings from or encouragements to particular people. The list of generally obscure names in Colossians 4 is typical and reveals the kinds of people God uses to accomplish his purposes. Consider Aristarchus, a captive man. He was from Thessalonica and went with Paul and Tychicus to […]