Colossians
Christ Above All
Continue In Christ Alone
October 8, 2023 • Derek A. Ward • Colossians 2:6–15
When we understand and accept the work of Christ on our behalf, we are called to move beyond the conversion experience to a lifelong walk with Christ. As Paul tells the Colossian Christians in this week’s study passage, this lifelong experience of walking with Christ will be possible as we become rooted, established, and built up in Christ. This is how the believer can progress from spiritual infancy to spiritual maturity. Christ must also continue to be our focal point as we walk because there will be many things vying for our attention and seeking to take our gaze off Him. These include human traditions and ideologies. Regardless of what comes against us, we can remain thankful and make bold progress filled with the knowledge of the finished work of Christ on our behalf.
The Great Exchange
November 5, 2023 • Derek A. Ward • Colossians 3:1–17
Christ is supreme and in His creation plan, He planned for our redemption by the shedding of His blood to reconcile us with God the Father. This gift of salvation was only possible through His work on the cross, which opened the door for mankind to escape the awfulness of hell and eternal separation from God. Christ became the sacrificial Lamb to provide for the Great Exchange – the exchange of the carnal for the sacred – the exchange of the old for the new. As beneficiaries of this Great Exchange, there is work for us to do to walk with Christ; things to put to death, things to put off, and things to put on!
Honour God's Code
November 12, 2023 • Derek A. Ward • Colossians 3:18—4:1
This sermon is another in the series on the supremacy of Christ which is underpinned by the overarching principle that Christians are called to do everything ‘in the name of the Lord Jesus’. It is based on the text sometimes referred to as the ‘household code’ and reminds believers that all their human relationships must inalienably be rooted in their identity as followers of Christ. It focuses on the Christian family and its conduct within the home and at work, setting out what the ‘code’ expects of interaction between husband and wife, parents and children, and master and slave (employer and employee in our contemporary context).
