He Is Worthy: The Excellency Of Jesus! Series

INTRODUCTION

As the way of introduction to today’s sermon, permit me to share with you the content of a dream of mine. In my dream, I was setting in the back of the chapel during a worship service when a guest pastor was preaching. His sermon was interesting to most, monotonous to a few, and mesmerizing to fewer still. For me, his content and delivery were so powerful that his sermon held me captive unlike any other sermon had ever done before. His wordsmithing enabled my mind’s eye to actually visualize his message as pictures that formed below him and in front of the podium. It was as if he was actually displaying a picture for each truth he taught, but of course he was not, or was he?

When he transitioned from one point to the next the pictures would rapidly become hidden within the chapel boundaries. When the service was over, a handful of us purposefully remained behind with the explicit intent to relentlessly retrieve that picture of truth that captivated us personally. The majority of those present were not aware of the pictures or the least bit inquisitive to what we were compelled to do. There was one picture in particular that enthralled me that I was convinced that I had to find at all cost. After, much searching, I noticed that some of the searchers had actually found their picture that caught their eye but mine was nowhere to be found, not yet anyways. One by one, they would clutch it, hold it to their chest because it had become so dear to them and also to protect it, and then they would study it or rather more accurately allow it to penetrate their soul with its life transforming and powerful truth.

At last, I found it. My picture. My truth. My answer. Dare I to look at it from this close proximity? Of course, nothing could keep me from it. As I looked at it, I could see that it was the picture of King Jesus. He was standing at His throne wearing His crown. My initial analysis while I was listening to the guest speaker was that Jesus’ crown did not fit Him, at all. Upon closer examination I noticed that His crown was either the wrong size or warped. After still further securitization it became painfully obvious to me that the picture was not only piercing through the darkness and confusion of my mind but that it was also actually becoming alive.

It was at this moment that I frantically dropped the picture on the floor. Right before my eyes the pictures crew larger and larger until it was life sized only it was not a picture any more but the actual King Jesus Himself incarnated. To my dismay the crown continued to look skewed. Then the next thing I knew, a giant hand came out of nowhere and touched my eyes and then I saw for the first time that the problem was not with Him or His crown but it was with my own perception of Him that was out of touch with reality. It was then that I realized for the first time that I was I in the presence of royalty so at that moment I feel to my knees and worshipped Jesus the King of Kings My Majestic Master. Could it be that, you, too, have distorted views of who Jesus really is?

Title: He is Worthy! “Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; His greatness no one can fathom.” (Psalm 145:3) Big Idea: The Excellency of Jesus Makes Him Our Majestic Master.

Let me give some context for what we’re going to read by first quoting what Paul said to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 4:6. For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Paul was saying there that if you want to know about the glory of God, the incredible capacities and qualities and ways of the Almighty God, the eternal God of the universe – if you want to know about those things, you do it by looking in the face of Jesus Christ.

You study Jesus because it’s in him where God has shown his glory most clearly. The knowledge of the glory of God [is] in the face of Jesus Christ. And if you want to study the person of Jesus Christ, the most concentrated paragraph in the Bible about His glory is the paragraph we are about to read and that I’m going to attempt to preach.

The apostle Paul, having just mentioned in the previous verses that it is in Jesus, God’s beloved Son, that we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, now launches into a description of the glory of Jesus. He would have the Colossians and us know who it is that has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into his kingdom.