Praise The Lord!

Praise the Lord!

Colossians 1:12-27

Sermon by Rick Crandall

McClendon Baptist Church - August 8, 2010

*John Piper once said: “To be supremely loving, God must give us what will be best for us and delight us most; He must give us Himself. But what do we do when we are given or shown something excellent, something we enjoy? We praise it.

-We praise new little babies: ‘O, look at that nice round head; and all that hair; and his hands, aren't they big!’

-We praise a lover's face after a long absence: ‘Your eyes are like the sky; your hair is like silk; O, you are beautiful to me.’

-We praise a grand slam in the bottom of the 9th when we are down by 3 runs.

-We praise the trees along the St. Croix during an autumn boat trip.” (1)

*C.S Lewis wrote: “The world rings with praise -- lovers praising their (ladies), readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game.

-Praise of weather, food, actors, horses, colleges, countries, heroes, children, flowers, mountains, even sometimes politicians and scholars. (2)

*Church, How much more should we praise the Lord!?! -- Speaking of Jesus, Hebrews 13:15 says: “Therefore by Him let us CONTINUALLY offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.” -- Let’s make up our minds today to praise the Lord.

1. First: Praise the Lord for starting and sustaining life.

*Jesus Christ is the source and sustainer of all life. Paul tells us this in vs. 15-17:

15. He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

16. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.

17. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.

*Jesus Christ is the Creator of all life, but that’s not all. He is the Sustainer of all life. “In Him all things consist” (i.e. In Jesus all things hold together). This means that Jesus Christ is the controlling and unifying force in nature.

*A few years ago, Louie Giglio told the story of the glue that holds our bodies together. Louie was talking about how inconceivably big our God is; how He spoke the universe into being; how with His Word He breathed stars out of His mouth that are huge raging balls of fire.

*Then Louie went on to speak of how this universe-creating God also knitted our human bodies together with amazing detail and wonder; how our loving Creator is also our sustainer. And Louie started talking about laminin. Laminin is a protein that is an essential part of the cell structure in almost all animal tissue.

-Laminin is what literally holds our bodies together.

-Laminin makes up the cell adhesion molecules that hold one cell of our bodies to the next cell. -- Without laminin we would literally fall apart.

*But the amazing thing is what laminin looks like. If you look up laminin in any scientific literature, this is what you will see. (I showed one of the pictures available online.) The glue that literally holds all of us together is in the shape of the cross. (3)

*Could that be just an incredible coincidence? -- You will never convince me, because Jesus Christ is both the Creator and Sustainer of all life. “He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.”

*How could Jesus do these amazing things? He could do them because He is God. Jesus is the eternal, almighty God, one with God the Father and the Holy Spirit. That’s why in vs. 18&19:

18. He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. (First place in everything!)

19. For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell,

*Listen to the way God’s Word describes Jesus in Heb 1:1-12. Listen and focus on the Lord’s infinite power and authority.

1. God, who at various times and in different ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets.

2. has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds;

3. who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

4. having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.