Fellowship Church Middlebrook

Living in the Gap

August 10, 2025 • RD McClenagan • Galatians 4:19

This Sunday, RD began our fall series, More Like Him. He used the imagery of a potter shaping clay to illustrate God’s intentional, hands-on work of spiritual formation in His people. From creation to the kiln, the clay’s shaping process reflects the way God forms us for His glory, often through slow, deliberate steps and even through the refining fire of suffering. Spiritual formation is the lifelong process of being shaped into the likeness of Jesus by the Holy Spirit, in the context of Christian community, requiring surrender rather than mere self-effort. Using Peter’s story, RD warned against building identity on our love for Jesus instead of His love for us, reminding us that true formation comes through abiding in His grace. The invitation of the series is to die to self, live in deeper surrender, and let God form us into people He delights to honor, so that our lives bear fruit for His glory.

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Therefore

August 3, 2025 • Greg Pinkner • Romans 3:21-26, Romans 12:1-4

Jesus’s central message was "repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand," calling us not just to change our behavior, but to be spiritually reborn. Sin is not simply bad behavior but missing the mark of perfectly loving and glorifying God, which no one can achieve apart from Christ. Spiritual disciplines like prayer, worship, and study are not ends in themselves, but tools to abide in God’s presence and be transformed by His grace. The Christian journey is not about religious performance, but a deepening life with God through the gospel, revealing both the depth of our need and the vastness of His love.

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As for the Lord

July 27, 2025 • Greg Pinkner • Colossians 3:18—4:6

This Sunday, Greg closes our summer series on Colossians, reminding us of Paul's warnings about false teachings and that Christ is supreme over all things. The Christian life is not just a moment of belief, but a continual process of putting off the old self and putting on the new, through repentance, gratitude, and obedience. Drawing from Romans and Ephesians, Greg stresses that theology must lead to transformation—true worship is offering our lives to God, and gratitude is the foundation of joy and worship, because it acknowledges our dependence on God as the giver of all things. We are to live lives marked by mutual submission, spiritual humility, and bold clarity in witness—even when it is costly—because our ultimate allegiance is to Christ above all.

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Desire for My True Country

July 20, 2025 • RD McClenagan • Colossians 3:1–17

This Sunday, RD continues our summer series on Colossians. Colossians 3 reminds us that transformation begins with identity—we have died with Christ, been raised with Him, and now live as new people whose lives are hidden in Him. Because of this reality, Paul calls us to set our minds on things above and actively put to death what is earthly in us—old patterns like sexual sin, anger, and lying—and instead put on compassion, humility, patience, and love. These changes are not about behavior management but about living from the truth of who we are in Christ: chosen, holy, and beloved. There is power and comfort in knowing that Jesus is seated at the right hand of God—reigning, interceding for us, and securing our forgiveness.

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Substance over Shadows

July 13, 2025 • RD McClenagan • Colossians 2:16-23

This Sunday, RD continues our summer series on Colossians. In Colossians 2, Paul urges believers to grow into spiritual maturity by holding fast to Christ, who is the message and the means of transformation, not adding human traditions or self-made religion to the gospel. He reminds the Colossians that God made them alive in Christ by forgiving all their sins, canceling their debt, and triumphing over spiritual powers at the cross. True growth comes from clinging to Christ, the head of the body, through whom the church is nourished, held together, and grows with God-given strength. In contrast to the slavery of self-righteous effort, the gospel produces love, joy, freedom, and worship as we behold Christ and are made more like Him.

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Nailed to the Cross

July 6, 2025 • Greg Pinkner • Colossians 2:8–15

This Sunday, Greg continues our summer series on Colossians. In Colossians 2, Paul warns the Colossians against false teachings that diminish Christ, distort grace, and pull believers back into legalism and human traditions. These teachings made Christ out to be just another created being, not the sovereign Lord, and suggested that salvation still required human effort. However, Christ is fully God, the head over all rule and authority, and believers are made alive in Him. True transformation comes from a spiritual change of heart, not outward religious performance. It is through Christ’s death and resurrection that God has forgiven sin, defeated the powers of darkness, and brought believers into His victory, not as captives, but as beloved family.

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Mature in Christ

June 29, 2025 • RD McClenagan • Colossians 1:24–29, Colossians 2:1–7

This Sunday, RD continues our summer series on Colossians. Paul’s deep desire is for every believer to grow in maturity, not just in knowledge or activity, but in actual Christlikeness—to be spiritually formed into his image. However, spiritual growth is often slow, confusing, and nonlinear. True transformation comes not from our own effort alone, but from the reality that Christ lives in us, empowering us to grow over time. Although the process can feel like a struggle, we are invited to keep walking with Jesus, trusting that He is shaping us into who we were always meant to be.

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Your Years Will Have No End

June 22, 2025 • Greg Pinkner • Colossians 1:19–20

This Sunday, Greg continues our summer series on Colossians. Colossians 1:19–20, the final section of the Christological hymn, emphasizes that Jesus is not merely a spiritual being but fully God, in whom all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. Paul writes this to confront false teachings in Colossae that diminished Christ’s divinity and authority over all creation and spiritual powers. Reconciliation through Christ is entirely God's work—bringing broken humanity and creation back to Himself, not through mutual compromise, but through the blood of the cross. This peace Jesus offers is not the absence of trouble but the restoration of what was lost in the fall, the resolution of the deep dissonance we feel between what is and what ought to be. Jesus stepped into our suffering, endured the wrath we deserved, and now offers us peace, not as a concept, but as a Person who holds us steady beneath all the chaos.

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He is the Head of the Church

June 15, 2025 • Greg Pinkner • Colossians 1:18

This Sunday, Greg continues our summer series on Colossians. Paul wrote Colossians, alongside Ephesians, to counter false teachings about spiritual beings having authority over people’s lives. In Colossians 1:16, Paul lifts up the supremacy of Christ, presenting Jesus as both the Creator of all things and the head of the church, with everything holding together in Him. The Christian life is about being in Christ—a reality that anchors us in peace and overcomes fear. It is the only place where true rest and new creation are found.

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He has the Whole World in His Hands

June 8, 2025 • RD McClenagan • Colossians 1:15–17

This Sunday, RD continues our summer series on Colossians. In Colossians 1:15–17, Paul emphasized Jesus as the visible image of the invisible God—fully divine and fully human, holding all things together. Jesus is not moderately important—He is central to everything, supreme over creation, and the one who restores the broken image of God in us through the gospel. Even in suffering, we can trust Jesus, who also bears wounds, not only reigns but also suffers with and for us.

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