Facing Fear

While we would face death with anxiety and fear, Jesus sees glory. Where we would be self-concerned, Jesus compassionately prepares His disciples for His departure. As we would turn in on our own mourning, Jesus turns His disciples towards a new commandment: loving one another.

John 13:31-35

Chris Bowser
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

Colossians: The Paradoxical Victory of the Cross

What appears to be Christ's greatest defeat... is actually His greatest victory and our victory too!! Paul is describing the victory scene to the Colossians.

Ephesians 1:18-2:10,6:10-20
Colossians 2:9-15,1:16,1:13-14,3:9
1 John 5:18
Genesis 3
1 Peter 5:8-9
James 4:7
Romans 6:6,6:11-12,8:12-13,8:3,16:19-20
John 6:37

These powers, angry at his challenge to their sovereignty, stripped him naked, held him up to public contempt, and celebrated a triumph over him. In one of his most dramatic statements of the paradox of the cross, and one moreover which shows in what physical detail Paul could envisage the horrible death Jesus had died, he declares that, on the contrary, on the cross God was stripping them naked, was holding them to public contempt, and leading them in his own triumphal procession - in Christ, the crucified Messiah. When the 'powers' had done their worst, crucifying the lord of glory incognito on the charge of blasphemy and rebellion, they have overreached themselves. He, neither blasphemer nor rebel, was in fact their rightful sovereign. They thereby exposed themselves for what they were - usurpers of the authority which was properly his. The cross therefore becomes the source of hope for all who had been held captive under their rule, enslaved in fear and mutual suspicion. Christ breaks the last hold that the 'powers' had over his people, by dying on their behalf. N.T. Wright Colossians and Philemon

Sermon discussion questions for parents to use with their children:

• Who are the principalities and powers?
• How do they impact the world?
• Can we break free?
• How are we delivered?
• How did God turn the tables on the principalities upon the cross?
• How was Jesus' greatest defeat His greatest victory?
• What are the implications of all of this for us today?

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

Colossians: Paid in Full

When a debt is paid off the bill may be stamped Paid in Full, or even a mortgage may be burned. In Colossians Paul writes of a handwritten debt being nailed to the cross. A dramatic word image of what Jesus did for us.

Colossians 2,1:15-19
Proverbs 11:15,17:18
Acts 12:23
Hebrews 10:31,8:12,7:22
Psalm 103:12

Sermon discussion questions for parents to use with their children:

• How in debt are we before God?
• How serious is that debt?
• Why is it so difficult to take on someone else's debt?
• Why is our salvation like burning a mortgage?
• What specific encouragements were we given so as to not desecrate the cross and what God has done through Christ?

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

True Greatness!

We live in a Celebrity Saturated Age. We (as a culture) love celebrities, and wish we could be one. We try, on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, to get that chance to go viral. Most all of us fail to reach the allusive status. Woe are we... the losers in the celebrity lottery, never to be great. But then, Jesus comes along and so radically redefines what greatness is that He calls us to completely change the way we think. And, He gives us a true shot at greatness in the sight of God!!! What is True Greatness? This will be our study. It will be both challenging but also powerfully liberating!!!

Matthew 20

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

Colossians: You Have the Upper Hand

Why does knowing that in Christ you died to the reign of sin give you an Upper Hand in your war against your personal remaining sin? Let's let Paul tell us from Colossians.

Colossians 2:11-13
Romans 5:14-6:12,8:3-4,6:16,8:8-9,8:12-13
1 Corinthians 1:14-17
2 Corinthians 5:14

...to recognize a broadly attested New Testament theological concept dubbed by James Dunn "conversion-initiation." The New Testament connects our coming to Christ (being converted and initiated into the new covenant community) to faith, to repentance, to the gift of the Spirit, and to water baptism, in various combinations. Any of these, in a kind of metonymy, could be used to connote the whole experience – implying, of course, in each instant, the presence of all of the others. Water baptism, then, as a critical New Testament rite intimately connected to our conversion experience, could be used as shorthand for the whole experience. But it is also striking that it is just in the two most important Pauline passages about our being buried "with Christ" that baptism is brought into the picture in this way (when it is not frequently referred to elsewhere in Paul in this fashion). This may indeed suggest additionally, that early Christians associated the waters of baptism with Christ's burial. Douglas J. Moo The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon

Sermon discussion questions for parents to use with their children:

• What does it mean that the believer was crucified, buried and risen with Christ?
• When did this happen to the believer?
• How does this change our relationship with sin as a power and a reign?
• What are the practical implications of this in my battle with remaining sin?
• What am I supposed to reckon?

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

United in Christ

What does it mean for us to be united in Christ? Especially as a corporate church body? Christ breaks down the barrier that separates us, no matter if the division is race, gender, wealth, power, or religion.

Ephesians 2,1:3-7,1:11
Romans 9:4-5

Chris Bowser
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA