Scripture Lesson: Colossians 1:15-29
In one of the Peanut’s cartoons, Lucy and Linus were sitting in front of the television set when Lucy said to Linus, "Go get me a glass of water."
Linus looked surprised, "Why should I do anything for you? You never do anything for me."
"On your 75th birthday," Lucy promised, "I’ll bake you a cake."
Linus got up dragging his blanky, headed to the kitchen and said, "Life is more pleasant when you have something to look forward to."
Hope comes easy for Linus!
Let me ask you a question. In whom or what do you put your hope? We know that some people put their hope on money and wealth. Money can definitely provide you with more options in life, but if you built your hope in it, you would be like building a house on the sand. It cannot hold you through the storms of life.
Money is a good servant but not a good master; if you put your hope in it, you make it your master, and if so you will be very disappointed because you cannot take it with you to the next life to bribe the gatekeepers of heaven or hell, as some religions believe you can do so. You will never see a hearse towing a u-haul.
There was a guy who told his wife on his death bed, “Honey, I have $200,000 of cash hidden in my mattress. Would you promise me that you will put that money in my coffin and bury me with it?” The wife promised that she would do. The next day the husband die, she took the money and deposit it in a bank, and wrote a check for $200,000 and put it in his coffin and buried him with it.
Some people put their hope in people. Some people put their hope in their children and they get disappointed when they don’t measure up to their dreams. None of our loved ones can guarantee to be with us all our lives.
Some people easily put hope in the next person to come into their lives...
Milton Berle told a story about how people can easily put hope in the wrong people:
Four widows were playing cards in the retirement home they lived in. A good-looking older fellow walks in, bags under each arm. "What’s a good-looking man like you doing here?" one asks.
"I’m moving in," he says.
"Oh," says another woman. "Where are you from?"
"I’ve been in the can the last fifteen years."
"The can?" they ask.
"Yeah, the can, the clink, the slammer, the state penitentiary."
"Oh," says one. "What did you do?"
"I murdered my wife. I cut her up and buried her in the back yard." There follows a long pause, and then one of them pipes up:
"Oh, so you’re single!"
We must be careful not to put our hope in the wrong thing or wrong person.
In today’s scripture lesson, Paul wrote to the Colossians, saying that our hope is promised by the gospel, that we have heard, which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven. We must not shift from it. A hope that is placed on anything other than Jesus Christ is a false hope because hope is only as reliable as the person who promised the hope. Paul says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8) Jesus is the most trustworthy person to put our hope on because he is the same yester day, today, and forever.
Paul teaches us why we should put our hope on Jesus Christ. We must...
1 – Put hope in Jesus Christ because he solve the mysteries of life
“He is the image of the invisible God...(later in the passage Paul says) the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but has now been revealed to his saints.” (Col. 1:15a, 26).
One of the mysteries of life is, “Is there a God? If so what is God like?” The second question is more important the first one because if you can find out what God is like than there is no need to prove that if there is a God because you are seeing God already.
The scripture says that Jesus is the image of the invisible God. That solves one of the greatest mysteries in the world. All religions all over the world try to paint a picture of God, but none of them get the precise picture of God. Some depict God as an angry deity up in the sky creating thunder and storms to scare people from doing sinful things. Some create an image of God as a deity that you must offer money and food to so that you will become wealthy. Even within one religion you have many interpretation of God. For example, the image of God among the Chinese Buddhists and Burmese Buddhist are totally different.
The truth is that God is invisible. God might be like a 16 dimensional being, which is impossible for human beings with the three dimensional eyes to see, just as a two dimensional being cannot envision three dimensional beings.
For example, suppose an ant is a two dimensional being, if you put your finger in front of it, it will just see a flat wall without capturing your finger as part of a human being. The ant can not see human beings not just because of the size difference, but because it is from a two dimensional world. I wonder if those ants were able to sense the existence of human beings, how they would paint a picture of us. How would they create images of people?
All the images we have about God in all religions are just imaginations. They are what I would call virtual reality, human visualization of the invisible God. But, the good news is, in Jesus Christ, that virtual reality becomes actual reality.
The Gospel according to John says, Jesus is the Word became flash; a conceptual being became an actual being so that our eyes can see what God is like. Jurgen Moltmann, one of the greatest theologian in the 20th century that is still alive today, says that he believe in God because of Jesus Christ; without Jesus he would never become a deist because there is no way for us to comprehend God. Without Jesus we all become agnostic, we all are blind to God because God is invisible. But we now see God because Jesus is the image of the invisible God.
Jesus doesn’t only reveal to us what God is like, but also through believing in him we begin to understand the mysteries of life, particularly, the mystery of salvation, the mystery that bring us eternal hope.
2 – Put hope in Jesus Christ because he governs the universe
“He is...the firstborn of all creation; 16 for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (v.15b-17)
When Margaret Johnson was looking for a senior retirement place to move to, she did a lot of study to make a wise choice. Some times she got frustrated and asked me if she was making the right choice. The senior housings around here are either expensive or being there long enough to put your trust in them. Her concern is that if the senior housing provider become bankrupt, the seniors living in their housing would end up on the streets. That’s the legitimate concern. She doesn’t now how long she would live, but she wants to make sure that the housing company is strong enough to provide her a clear hope that she can spend the rest of her life in there.
Margaret Johnson is a very wise woman. She eventually decided to move to the Presbyterian homes in Pennsylvania because it guarantees a solid future for her within what she can afford.
We all should be wise like Margaret, in a spiritual sense. We must put our hope on someone who has the most control over the universe, who has the strongest financial backbones. Jesus is the one. The scripture says, “He is the first born of the creation.” First born in Hebrew culture means the one how is in charge. It is usually the oldest son, but it is not always the oldest son. But he is definitely the heir of the universe.
“...for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
Have you heard that before? Jesus was not somebody that was born 2000 years ago. He was at the beginning of creation, in fact he was there before the creation and everything is created through him and for him. Notice it says that “in him all things hold together.” That’s why you should put your hope in him because, since he controls the creation, you can put your hope him, more than anything else. He is the solid foundation for your hope.
3 – Put hope in Jesus Christ because he holds the future
“He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.”
Notice the scripture says that Jesus Christ is the head of the body, the church. The head, in the Hebrew tradition, represents a leader, the one who sets goals and defines vision, and lead the rest to a promising future. The head has eyes to see, the ears to hear, the brain to think, and even the nose to sustain the life of the entire body.
The body is the church. The church formed by his followers to follow him into a fruitful future.
Jesus is the head means he can see better than we can. We want to put hope in someone who can see better than us. I don’t understand why would someone worship idols and statues that don’t even have a real set of eyes and they look more blind and dead than us.
Jesus is the head means he can think better than we can because the brain is in the head. He has the owner of the ultimate wisdom. Jesus is the head means he can hear what we can’t hear. It means he can sustain our lives through his breath. Most of all he can lead us to safety because he is equipped with these sense and through them he can make good decisions that can promise and guarantee us a solid hope for our future.
Put your hope in him and your life will be like a house build on the solid foundation, and no storms of life can ever knock you down.
May God bless you and may your hope in the gospel give you a joyful life!
