Shoot for the Center

In one paragraph

Pastor Ray worked through Colossians 2:1-15, showing how the person and work of Christ is the fixed center that holds the Christian life together, and how every drift away from that center, whether toward cold rationalism, unchecked supernaturalism, bare religion, or rootless experience, is a form of being taken captive. Pastor Ray opened with an image he has used before: a target with crosshairs...

Read together

1. 1 Chronicles 16:34 opened worship with 'give thanks to the Lord for he is good, his faithful love endures forever'
2. Psalm 84 quoted to say a single day in God's courts is better than a thousand elsewhere
3. Psalm 138:8 Carolyn quoted it at the Turning Point announcement: 'he will accomplish all that concerns us for his loving kindness is everlasting'
4. Acts 17:28 read before worship: 'for in him we live and we move and we have our being'
5. Romans 8:26-27 read before worship about the Holy Spirit interceding with groanings that cannot be expressed in words
6. Colossians 2:1-15 the main passage preached through the entire sermon
7. John 3:16 a child recited it from Awana memory work during the sermon
8. Romans 13 referenced briefly to support that Christ is head over all rule and authority and we submit to governing authorities
9. 2 Corinthians 8:9 quoted near the end: 'though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor so that you by his poverty might become rich'
10. Micah 6:8 used as benediction alongside Titus 2: 'act justly, love mercy, walk humbly with your God'
11. Titus 2:11-12 used as benediction: 'the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people, teaching us to say no to ungodliness'

Talk about it

1. Pastor Ray used the image of a level and a target to describe what he is aiming for each week in preaching. In your own walk, what tends to pull you away from the center, whether toward empty rules and religion, or toward treating faith as only a personal feeling or experience?
2. Paul says he struggles for people he has never even met, wanting their hearts to be encouraged and knit together in love. Who in your life are you struggling for in that way, and what does that kind of care actually look like in practice?
3. Pastor Ray pointed out that plausible arguments, whether from philosophy, human tradition, or religious rules, can all pull us away from Christ. Can you think of a time when something that sounded reasonable led you or someone you know away from what Scripture actually says?
4. The sermon described Christ hitting the absolute center in his life and walk, and the gospel as God offering us that righteousness even though our own record was all over the map. What does it mean to you personally that God cancelled that record by nailing it to the cross?
5. Micah 6:8 and Titus 2 were brought together at the close of the sermon, with Pastor Ray saying that acting justly, loving mercy and walking humbly with God is impossible without knowing Christ. How does knowing Christ actually change the way you pursue those three things in everyday life?