Next Sunday At ODCC

Clothe Yourselves — Sermon 6 │ Colossians 3:15–17 │ Sunday, November 1, 2026

Paul has spent two chapters telling the church at Colossae what has already been done for them, and most of a third telling them what to take off and what to put on. Then, in three verses, he tells them what a Sunday morning is for.

Colossians 3:15–17 has three commands in it. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly. And whatever you do, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus.

Two of those commands start with the word "let." That is a different kind of command from "put to death" or "clothe yourselves." Those were work. "Let" is getting out of the way. Paul is not telling us to go make peace. He is telling us to stop fighting a peace that is already ours.

The word he uses for "rule" is a word from the Greek games. It is the umpire's word. Paul uses it one time in the whole New Testament, right here. The peace of Christ is supposed to make the calls in us — on the worry at two in the morning, on the argument we keep replaying, on the fear in the waiting room. Something is going to make those calls. Paul says, let it be the peace Jesus made at the cross.

Then he says, let the word of Christ move in. Not visit. Move in and stay. And he tells us what a word does when it lives in a church. It teaches, and it sings. What a church sings is what a church believes, and it is what a church remembers when it cannot remember anything else.

And then the verse this sermon is named for. "Whatever you do." Not whatever you do at church. Whatever. Every word and every deed, with His name on it.

Here is the thing to watch for. Each of those three verses ends the same way. "And be thankful." "With gratitude in your hearts." "Giving thanks to God the Father through him." Three verses. Three commands. Three thanks.

And here is the thing I did not see until this week. Jesus did all three on the same night — the night before the cross.

Join us Sunday, November 1, at Open Door Christian Church as we open Colossians 3:15–17. The memory verse is Colossians 3:17:

"And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."

Come find out what a Sunday morning is for.