Isn’t music wonderful? This morning we’ve been blessed with all kinds of music, as we usually are. Music seems to speak to a part of the soul as nothing else does. I think we’ve all had times when we left church remembering what was sung more than what was said.
In 1530 the great reformer Martin Luther wrote: “I am not ashamed to confess publicly that next to theology there is no art which is the equal of music, for she alone, after theology, can do what otherwise only theology can accomplish, namely, quiet and cheer up the soul of man, which is clear evidence that the devil, the originator of depressing worries and troubled thoughts, flees from the voice of music just as he flees from the words of theology.”
In this morning’s text, we’re going to be reading the words of a great frist century hymn. When Paul was writing this part of Colossians, he reached up on the shelf and got his hymnal. He might have known that the words of this hymn about Jesus would encourage and motivate his readers to continue on in their faith. Just about all Bible scholars agree that verses 15-20 of chapter one is a hymn, thought they disagree on its exact construction.
If you have your Bibles open to Colossians chapter one, follow along as we read verses 15 through 23:
[Read text here. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version.)
Paul motivated the Colossians to continue in the faith by holding up Jesus as supreme in everything. Just as they were motivated in this way, we too can be motivated to continue in the faith by realizing that Jesus is supreme in everything. In this passage, we can see examples of Jesus’ supremacy.
1. Jesus is our creator (15-17).
Now many people believe that God created, but “God” is loosely defined. Paul isn’t about to let that happen here, especially with false teachers saying that the Supreme Being couldn’t have created the world, since the material worlds consists of matter, which they said was only evil. At the beginning, Paul says that Jesus is the image of God. The New Living Translation puts it this way: “Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.”
That word in the Greek is like our word icon. Now you know from your computer that an icon is a little picture that represents a larger program. In the same way, Jesus is a man who represents the fullness of God. He not only represents God, He is God.
Another way the word was used back then was as a written detailed description of someone’s appearance. Today we do this by putting pictures on things like driver’s licenses, passports, student IDs, whatever. But back then, a legal document might include a section where a person was described in terms of height, size, hair and eye color, and other distinguishing marks. Paul is saying that everything we see in Jesus is what and who God is.
The Apostle John nails this down in his gospel, especially in these two verses: John 1:18 says, “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” Then in chapter 14, where we have the touching account of Jesus’ last night with His disciples before going to the cross, Philip asked Jesus to show them the Father. In verse nine, Jesus replies, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’”?
So Jesus, who is Himself God, created everything. Paul says he is the “firstborn” of all creation. In the second century, Arius, a bishop in Alexandria, too this to mean that Jesus was the first being created by God, then Jesus created everything else. Incidentally, this view is held today by the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons. But that’s not even close to what Paul is saying.
The word that is translated “firstborn” does not refer to time, but to status. In the ancient world, the oldest son was accorded special privileges and honors that the younger siblings did not have. So the term firstborn was often used to speak of standing and honor more than the birth order in a family. What Paul is saying in verse 15 is that Jesus towers high above all else as the leader in creation. I found an article by a man named Lambert Dolphin who put it this way: “We may think of the universe and its intricate design as being conceived in the mind of the Father then spoken into existence by the Son (who makes the invisible, visible). The Holy Spirit is the One who energizes and supplies life to the creation, not only at the time of creation but also moment by moment after that.”
Another way that Paul shows Jesus as supreme in creation is his mention of “thrones…dominions…rulers…[and] authorities” in verse 16. These four words are referring to the invisible heavenly creation, or angels. Among ancient Jews as well as these early Gnostic teachers, the hierarchy of angels was a big deal. In fact, later in the book (2:18), Paul will warn them against people like this.
Anyway, some of the people in Colossae were probably lumping Jesus in with all kinds of other angelic beings, not giving Him the honor and supreme worship that He so richly deserves. William Barclay paraphrases it this way: “You give a great place in your thinking to angels. You rate Jesus Christ merely as one of them. So far from that, he created them.”
The bottom line is this: Jesus created everything in the universe, and that certainly includes you and me. Since that is true, it only makes sense to submit ourselves to Jesus, seeing as He made us and therefore knows best what is truly good for us.
If you’ve been driving for a while, you’ve probably had to take your car to get fixed. For some things, you can take your car just about anywhere to be fixed. But for others, only the dealer can fix it. Why? The dealer is closely connected to the car’s manufacturer and has the knowledge, techniques, and tools to do what no one else can do.
Right now there’s a bill in the legislature called “Right to Repair,” which would require the manufacturer to release all this specialized knowledge and equipment to any repair shop. Unfortunately, many people have declared a “right to repair” personally and spiritually. They live their lives in direct contradiction of God’s way revealed in the Bible.
All our lives are in need of repair because of the sin that entered the world back in Eden. There are so many “repair manuals” out there, but only one that has been written by our Maker. Getting back to your car, there are certain dealer only repairs that, if performed by another shop, could seriously damage the car. In the same way, if you entrust your spiritual “repair” and maintenance to anyone but Jesus, the damage could be terrible as well as eternal.
Even though Jesus created us, He did not create or cause the sin in our lives. But sin and destruction are taken care of in the next example of Jesus’ supremacy:
2. Jesus is our reconciler (18-20).
In verse 18 the Bible says s that Jesus is “the firstborn of the dead.” There’s that word, firstborn again! Now Jesus wasn’t the first to rise from the dead, so “firstborn” can’t refer to placement in time. But He was the first to rise from the dead with a body that would never die again, and that makes Him first as in “first place.”
In verse 20 we are given the reason for Jesus dying and coming back to life: so that all things could be reconciled to God. That word in the original language means to exchange hostility for friendship—to affect a thorough changeback.
Think of an estranged couple who are apart but then get back together. Now you can’t really say they’re reconciled only if they’ve quit fighting. Somewhere along the line, there needs to be forgiveness, letting go of past hurts, and a return to the loving state they knew in happier times. In the same way, reconciliation with God means more than not going to hell. It means that we enter into a loving relationship with Him where He has our best interests in mind and moves us in a direction that we become more like Jesus.
The New Testament never talks of God being reconciled to men, but always of men being reconciled to God. The only way to be at peace with God was to have the debt of sin wiped out. Jesus’ death and resurrection was the means of reconciliation, or as Paul puts it in verse 20, “peace by the blood of his cross.”
According to father-son scholars Cleon Rogers, Jr. and Cleon Rogers 3rd, the peace that Jesus made at the cross was “…more than an end to hostilities. “It has a positive content, pointing to the presence of positive blessings, and concerned with the spiritual blessing and prosperity of the whole man.”
If we go back to verse 18, we see that this reconciled relationship is to be lived out in His church: “And he is the head of the body, the church” The church is where those who have been reconciled belong. The church isn’t an organization, but an organism. It is the body of Christ, and He is that body’s head. The question every church has to ask itself is, “Are we connected to the head?”
A person can live without limbs. Many of you know that my brother had to have both legs amputated last December. I’m glad to tell you that in spite of this obvious setback, he’s doping remarkably well. I also remember a guy from my seminary, Daniel, who was born without arms. Watching Daniel move through his day was fascinating, right down to typing with his toes.
Yes, we can live without limbs, but no one can live without a head. When the head comes off, you’re dead. Unfortunately, a lot of churches are like that. They’re social gatherings of perhaps good people, but they have no relationship with Christ, and they’re spiritually dead.
But it’s also possible for a person to have his head, but a spinal cord injury has left him unable to use the arms and legs that he does have. His brain is telling, even begging, the legs and arms to move, but the vital connection has been severed, and the limbs can’t move. In the same way, if our church, or any church, loses that vital connection with our head, Jesus, we’ll just be useless body parts that really don’t serve any useful purpose.
With this in mind, let me point out two conditions that will make our church, or any church, ineffective: 1) Members who aren’t truly reconciled to God, and 2) Members who aren’t reconciled to each other. Colossians 3:13 warns us against this last one by saying that we are always supposed to be “…bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
We’ve seen two examples of Jesus’ supremacy in the fact that He created us, and therefore knows us better than anyone else; He is also the only one who could reconcile us, that is, bring us back into a peaceful relationship with God. Now here is the final example of Jesus’ supremacy for this morning:
3. Jesus is our presenter (21-23).
This section starts off with a little history, reminding us that we were once God’s enemies but are now His friends. He explains how this happened: Jesus willingly gave His life on the cross; he died in our place so that we could live with Him forever.
Jesus wants to present us to God one day as trophies of His grace. And He wants us to be holy, blameless and above reproach for that moment. Holy means to be consecrated to God’s service, pure, and reverent. In other words, we aren’t the way we were before, but we’ve been changed. The old habits and “evil deeds” of which we are now ashamed aren’t a part of our lives anymore.
When I was younger, my mom used to sew. She made a lot of my clothes when I was growing up. Anyway, we had quite a few pair of scissors in our house, and we used them for many things: cutting paper, string, plastic, whatever. But mom’s good sewing scissors were off-limits. They were the scissors she used only for cutting material. Once in a while, my brothers or I might need a pair of scissors in a hurry, and mom’s sewing scissors were the first ones we found, then we used them for the paper, plastic, whatever. Unfortunately, when she went to use them for cutting material, she knew instantly that they had been used for something else that she never intended.
In the same way, we’ve been brought back to God to be used for His purpose and glory, not for ours or the world’s. Unfortunately, we get ourselves in situations where we give in to ourselves or situations around us, and we are no longer the pure holy vessels that God intends us to be.
Another term there is blameless, or without blemish (NIV). This is the same word that was used of the Old Testament sacrificial lambs that were not to have any physical defects such as being blind, lame, or having cuts or gashes in the skin. To keep a lamb healthy and without blemish, the shepherd had to be protective and careful that he not get away and injure himself. In spiritual terms, this means that we are to keep ourselves close to the great shepherd, and not go off and do things that will compromise or endanger our spiritual health.
The final term there is “above reproach.” This has to do with our witness and standing in the world. Our lives are to be such that no one should be able to make a credible accusation against us. That is, nothing should be able to stick. In our lifetime, perhaps one of the most “above reproach” men walking is Billy Graham. I recall reading some years ago that Dr. Graham would never meet a woman alone under any circumstances. He was always careful. When he went to any hotel, he always had a couple close associates go through the hotel rooms before he entered, just in case a woman might happen to be in the room.
Dr. Graham knew that if he entered the room and a woman was there, he might be open to temptation or scandal, and he wasn’t about to let that happen. Compare that to the behavior of another Bill, Bill. Clinton. The point is this, if someone accused Billy Graham of having an affair, the unison response from everybody would be “No way!” But when Bill Clinton’s accused of the same things, heads nod as if to say, “Yup.”
Do you really see what this section is saying? It’s saying that salvation is the beginning step to a life that will culminate in being presented by Jesus to His Father. Too many of us, though, see salvation as the end--now I’m ready for heaven. Yes, salvation gets us to heaven, but Jesus wants us to get there in triumph, not in defeat.
A lot of people, and sad to say a lot of them Christians, will defend their unholy living by saying something like, “But God loves me just the way I am.” Of course they’re absolutely right. God loves everybody, including Osama Bin Laden, just the way they are. His essence and nature is love, and He loves everybody.
God loves you just the way you are, but He loves you too much to leave you that way.
Now all of this, being holy, blameless, and above reproach requires our devotion and participation, but it is Christ, living His life through ours, who gets it done.
Think of the athletes who have been training hard for the Olympics. Yes, they’ve made tremendous sacrifices and put their bodies through grueling exercises to get to where they are now, but it is their coaches and trainers who have channeled all that sweat and work into making them champions. So it is with us, Christ is the coach who’s putting us through our paces so that He can one day present us to His Father in a way that will make Him pleased.
Jesus created us, we are His rightful property. Unfortunately we have gone off on our own, doing as we please. The prophet Isaiah put it this way: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned--every one--to his own way” (Isaiah 53:6). But God loved us and did everything in His power to reconcile us back to Him. That reconciliation is the beginning of a life with Jesus that will culminate one day as He proudly presents us as trophies of His grace to God the Father.
How about you? Have you been reconciled to Him?
