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.
Let’s hear him describe the Savior for us in verses 15-20, and then I’ll pray.
Please turn in your Bibles to Colossians chapter 1. Our text this morning is verses 15-20.
Colossians 1:15-20 15 ¶ He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, disclose and demolish distorted views we have of Your Son, our Lord and Savior. Jesus, allow us to get a glimpse of your divinity. Holy Spirit, enable us to see Jesus as He really is so that we may worship and serve Him as He really deserves. Amen.
Preaching this text is something like trying to give a tour of the Grand Canyon in 30 minutes. There’s just too much there to take in all at once. So it is with the glory of the beloved Son, Jesus. No less than 15 separate statements are made about him here, and each one is deep with meaning. If we spent 15 weeks on this text, we would still not have exhausted all we could learn from what is said here about the Lord.
But that doesn’t mean we won’t be helped by a short tour through the text. Even the tourists who spend only 30 minutes at the edge of the Grand Canyon are glad they came, because even the least time in front of beauty and majesty moves your soul and makes you thirsty for more. We won’t be able to probe all 15 glories listed here, but we can at least get exposed to the Grand Canyon of Christ’s glory enough to fuel our worship to him.
And I believe that is God’s intended effect on us this morning as we work through the text. I read Psalm 33:8 on Friday as I was beginning to prepare this message, and it says this: Let all the earth fear the LORD; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him! God would have us stand in awe of his beloved Son, and so he wrote Colossians 1:15-20 to help us to do that.
This deliverer, who paid the ransom to free God’s people from the domain of darkness so they could receive their heavenly inheritance in light, is not only a holy man who was willing to die so others could live. He is that. But He is much more than that.
As we work our way through the passage to see that, I want to prepare you that there will be many more references to other Scriptures than usual, and this message is somewhat thick with explaining the many statements made about Jesus. There just didn’t seem to be any other way to try to grasp his glory. So if you’re taking notes, you may have a harder time keeping up with all the details. So if I have your email address you will receive a copy of this manuscript tomorrow.
So here we go, looking into the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, Himself. Let’s begin with the first truth that…
1. Jesus is Lord
Verse 15 says, He is the image of the invisible God. What does that mean? It means that Jesus is the exact representation of God. Hebrews 1:3 says He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. In other words, everything that God is, Jesus is. He does not just have god-like qualities. He is not merely an exalted form of man or a lesser form of God. He is God. Or as we more commonly say, he is Lord.
It is said in Genesis 1:26 that you and I are made in the image of God, after his likeness. That means that we are more like God than anything else in creation, for nothing else in creation is made in His image. There are qualities that God possesses that He allows only man to share in and demonstrate. But Jesus, God’s beloved Son, is not simply made in the image of God. He is the image of God. He is the exact imprint of His nature. All that God is, Jesus is because He is, always has been and always will be God. Jesus is God: when he was on earth he was not just a human, he was God in human form. The Gospel of John says this poetically in John 1:14: The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
This was the testimony of Jesus himself. He said in John 10:30 “I and the Father are one.” When he said that, the Jews knew that he was making a claim to be not just a man, but also God. So they picked up stones to stone him. And as they were about to stone him, they said it was “for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God” (John 10:33). They were half right. He was and is a man, and he did claim to be God. But it wasn’t blasphemy because he really is God.
Jesus is the image of the invisible God. He is the invisible God made visible in the flesh. That’s what verse 19 in our text tells us. In him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. All that God is, Jesus is. The fullness of God is present in Jesus Christ. All of his qualities are in him. In what sense is Jesus God?
Is God eternal, meaning that he has always existed and never had a beginning and never has an end? Then Jesus is eternal, also, having always existed without beginning and without end. Now, that may blow a gasket in our thinking because we know that Jesus the man was born in a point in time. His fleshly body had a beginning. So how can Jesus be eternal? It’s because Jesus existed as God the Son before he became the man named Jesus. That’s why Jesus was able to say to the Jews, in John 8:58, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” He existed before Abraham. In fact, he existed before the world was made. God the Son is eternal.
Is God sovereign and almighty, meaning that He has the freedom and authority and power to do all that He desires to do without successful challenge or resistance to His will? Then Jesus is almighty and sovereign as well. Again, our minds strain to grasp this, because we know that Jesus was betrayed, captured, tortured and put to death on a cross. How can we say that he is almighty and no one can resist him?
It’s because Jesus laid aside for a time the divine prerogatives, He laid aside His independent use of His divinity, He laid aside his exclusive privileges as God that He might suffer at the hands of sinners and bear the penalty required for our salvation. As Paul said in Philippians 2:6-8, He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Jesus is sovereign and almighty, equal with God, but He chose to take the form of a lowly servant to die for our sins.
Claiming that suitable behavior towards Christ’s ontological significance, according to Joseph Parker a 19th century English preacher, is paramount, and he wrote, "There are other men who do not come to worship Christ; who simply come to speculate upon Him…such patronage they offer the Son of God! It makes me sad to hear how they damn Him with faint praise. What I dread among you is not that you will destroy Christ, but that you will patronize Him. Jesus Christ is nothing to me if He is not the Savior of the world…You will know what Jesus Christ is most and best when you are in greatest need of such service as He only can render. No man can entertain an opinion of indifference regarding Jesus. If he has considered the subject at all, he must worship Christ or crucify Him. Where there is earnestness in the inquiry or the criticism, that earnestness ends in homage or in crucifixion." So if Jesus is only man than crucify Him, and so they did but since He is God He did not stay dead so pay Him homage.
Name any attribute of God – His unchangeability, His love, His mercy, His wrath, His righteousness, His wisdom, His omniscience, His omnipresence, His omnipotence– Jesus is all of these things. He is the image of the invisible God because He’s God.
He is God made visible to us, which is why he said in John 14:9 to his disciple Philip, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” All that God the Father is, Jesus is. Jesus is God. Jesus is Lord. Now why does this matter?
It’s because the difference between life and death, between true religion and false religion, between being in the domain of darkness or in the kingdom of the beloved Son is whether or not you believe that Jesus is Lord. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved (Romans 10:9). If you don’t confess that, you won’t be saved.
A person is not saved just because they believe nice things about Jesus. Muslims believe nice things about Jesus. They say he was a sinless prophet. But they don’t believe that he is God or that he really died on the cross. Mormons say nice things about Jesus. They say he is the Son of God. But they teach that Jesus wasn’t always God, and that you and I can become sons of God in the same sense He is, if we work hard at it. The Jehovah’s Witness says Jesus was a god. They just don’t believe he is the God. The demons even believe and you know their destiny.
And we could list many more ideas that people have about Jesus, that he was a good moral teacher, a good example of humanity, a humble bearer of injustice – all these things, but my friends, Jesus is Lord, he is God, the eternal unchanging, all-powerful, just and merciful God who has entered his creation as a man and died for man’s sins. This is the Jesus whom we must bow to and trust in for salvation or we aren’t saved.
C.S. Lewis had this to say about the Lordship of Jesus Christ and mankind’s insistence on calling Him everything else, “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ’I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to." He is either a lunatic, a liar or Lord. God’s Word says that He is Lord.
So don’t be deceived into thinking that all religions that name the name of Jesus are leading to heaven. Don’t be deceived into thinking that Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses and Muslims and people who describe themselves as spiritual are all worshipping the Jesus of the Bible. Unless we and they bow the knee to this Jesus who is the image of the invisible God, the exact imprint of his nature, there is no forgiveness of sins.
Jesus is Lord. He is God. That’s the first truth about His glory. Here’s the second one which gives more detail about what Jesus is Lord over.
2. Jesus is Lord of Creation
This truth is the theme of verses 15-17.
Verse 15 says that the beloved Son in whom we have forgiveness of sins is the firstborn of all creation. That doesn’t mean that He was the first thing created, as if He became man first, and then the rest of the universe was made. It means that He is exalted over creation, that He is supreme, that He holds the highest rank.
Instead, it is referring to the custom in ancient times that declared the most honored son to be the firstborn with the most honor given to him. Now, normally the son who was given the most honor and the right of inheritance was the first one who was born, but not always. Sometimes the privileges given to the “firstborn” were given to another. Jacob was born second yet was given the blessing of the firstborn. Joseph was the greatest son but he was not the first born. David was made the king though he was the youngest son. Israel was given the right of inheritance as a nation even though it was not the first or even the greatest nation. Being the “firstborn over all creation” does not mean that Jesus was created, only that He has been given the highest honor of any human who has ever lived. “Firstborn” here refers to the honor of his position, not to the fact that he was created.
Now, that might seem like a really picky point to be making, but we need to be clear: Jesus was not created, he is the creator. God the Father did not produce Jesus the Son, they always existed along with the Spirit. And so it is with Jesus, except that unlike David God didn’t make Jesus the firstborn, Jesus is the firstborn. He is exalted over and rules over creation by virtue of being the God who brought all creation into existence. That’s what Paul continues to explain in the next verses. He is the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible…
This means that when you read Genesis 1:1, which says that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, the beloved Son was there. He was involved in the creation. It did not happen apart from him. John 1:3 says that all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.
Everything that exists was made through God the Son. There is not a single atom in the universe that came into being apart from the beloved Son making it come into being by His design. The galaxies that are 10 billion light years away were made through Him. The Rocky Mountains were made through Him. You and I were made by Him, designed by Him. The air we’re breathing, the materials in the seat you are sitting on, the gold in your wedding ring, the wheat in the bread found in the DFAC–all made through him.
And that’s not all, because creation isn’t only those things that we can see. He created all things visible and invisible. There are invisible created things as well. Things like gravity and time. Your spirit or soul is invisible, and yet it is real and created. And spiritual beings like angels and demons are also created through Jesus and are invisible unless the Lord makes them visible to us.
Paul lists some of these spiritual beings or spiritual powers that are invisible. He calls them thrones, dominions, rulers and authorities. This is similar to his list in Ephesians 6:12 where he says we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
The angelic powers, both good and bad, were created by Jesus. That doesn’t mean that the Lord created the bad ones bad. He didn’t create the demons evil. He created them good but they rebelled against God. Jude 1:6 speaks of “angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling.” They became evil, but they didn’t start out evil.
The point in all this is that Jesus is Lord over creation because everything that exists was made by him. So he has lordship or authority over what He has made.
That’s what we see in Jesus’ ministry. He showed his lordship over the visible creation by commanding the wind and the waves to stop when they were on the sea in a boat in the storm. He showed his lordship over the invisible creation when He commanded demons to come out of people.
Everything that exists has its origin by and through Jesus. He is exalted over all of it as the Creator.
But there’s more. Not only was the universe created by him, it is also maintained by him. It is kept existing by him. Verse 17 says that in him all things hold together.
In other words, everything that exists in the universe continues to exist only because Jesus keeps it that way. From the tiniest dust mite to the massive sun, from the cells in your body to the roof that is over our heads, and even the angelic beings, the universe has an ongoing dependence on the Lord to even be here. If he did not exercise his sovereign rule to hold together the visible and invisible things, they would all vanish.
That has some huge implications. It means that not only is he holding together everything that we consider to be good, but everything that has become corrupted by evil or is used for evil.
It means that he holds together not only the angels but also the demons that rebelled against God. It means that not only is holding together healthy bodies, but he is also holding together every virus that we catch and get ill from. He is not only holding together our homes, but also the crowbar that a thief uses to break into a house. He is not only keeping alive the godliest saint, but also every terrorist who is right now plotting the next car bomb.
And it means that our Lord not only created the wood and the nails and the Roman soldiers, but that he held them together as he was being crucified.
We might ask, why? What purpose does the Lord have for creating things that he knew would become corrupt (and He did know because as God He knows all things, including the end from the beginning)? What purpose could He have for keeping the flu virus around, or terrorists who crash planes into buildings, or even for that matter, people like me or you who repeatedly sin against Him?
Well, here’s the ultimate reason that’s given in verse 16 – all things were created through him and for him. Everything that exists was created for Christ. That means all things were created with the ultimate purpose that the glory of Jesus Christ would be made known. Even the things that have now become corrupt and evil will serve the greater plan of bringing glory to Jesus.
You see, God knew that the very good creation would fall into sin and corruption and evil. And in his infinite wisdom he took it all into account as He planned the history of salvation. It is out of the corruption of sin that the glory of His grace would shine most brightly. If the world contained no sin, no cause for judgment, there would be no way to display his mercy to people who deserve wrath. If the world contained no trials, there would be no cause for Jesus to display His comfort. If there is no reason for deliverance, we could never appreciate, what it means to be delivered and praise the Lord for deliverance.
Even the cross, which was fashioned by men to torture and kill people in the most horrible way, even it had its place in bringing glory to Jesus. When Judas left the last supper to betray Jesus, Jesus said “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him” (John 13:31). It was on the cross where the love of God and the justice of God were both seen in their clearest form in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus received glory through the wickedness of the cross.
In the end, nothing in the universe exists for itself. It must all ultimately serve the purpose for which it was made. It must bring glory to Jesus in the end. All things were created through him and for him.
That doesn’t mean that if you’re sick with a virus that we don’t ask for healing. It doesn’t mean that we don’t ask God to thwart the plans of evildoers and give us protection. We’re encouraged to ask for those things in the Scriptures, and the Lord does grant healing and protection when it brings him glory to do so. It does mean though, that if God does not grant those things, that he has a purpose in it to bring glory to Jesus by not granting them. He has a reason that he holds together those things we wish he wouldn’t. And we can rest in that, because as Lord of creation he could change it if it was best for us.
As created beings we owe our existence and our adoration to the one who created us. When we follow man-made religions we are turning our worship to the wrong things. This means that Jesus is above EVERYTHING on earth, even angels and demons. The people in Colossae were being told that they should worship angels and false gods. But Paul points out that Jesus is over all of these things.
I want this to be clear. The claims that the Bible makes about Jesus are big. You don’t have to believe them, but if you claim to believe the Bible you must acknowledge that the Bible claims that Jesus is God, the creator God, the one and only God. Disbelieve him if you must, but don’t cheapen Him by claiming that we can choose God like people choose a political party or a favorite brand of laundry detergent. He is either the Creator God or the Bible is false: we can’t have it both ways.
There is so much more to say about that, but there is more to the Grand Canyon of the glory of Jesus for us to see. We must move on to the last truth about his glory in this passage.
3. Jesus is Lord of redemption.
This is the theme of verses 18-20.
Let’s begin with verse 18, which says “… he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.”
Now, how do we understand this? I mentioned in the last point that man is corrupted by sin.
Therefore, by rights everyone should remain in the domain of darkness and never receive an inheritance in heaven where God is. But God’s plan for creation is to show the glories of Jesus, because it was all created for him. Part of the glory of Jesus is to display His mercy to sinners. So God acts to redeem a people for Himself, a new humanity whose sin he will remove and not hold against them, and a people that He will deliver from the domain of darkness. That group of people is the church.
And we read that Jesus is the head of …the church. To be the head means Jesus has authority over the church. Headship always has to do with authority, and when it comes to the church Jesus has authority over it, he governs it. He leads it. He directs it. He exercises his will over it.
But why is it that Jesus has this ruling authority over the church? Well, he’s God for one thing, so he rules everything. But another reason is given as well. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
In other words, Jesus is preeminent - meaning unsurpassed and exalted - he is preeminent over the church because of the fact that he is the beginning and the firstborn from the dead. That is to say, he is the originator or founder of the new, resurrected humanity, the first of many to come who will follow in His train.
The writer of Hebrews called Jesus “the founder and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). In Acts 3:15, Peter called Jesus “the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead.” Jesus is the one who has blazed the trail for His people to escape judgment, to escape the corruption of sin, and to inherit new, resurrected bodies fit for the life to come, fit for the heavenly city where no unclean thing or person will ever enter.
He is the beginning. In Jesus the resurrection age has arrived, and he is the first who has risen to immortality.
1 Corinthians 15:20-22 tells us that Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
Resurrection has come through Jesus, who is the firstfruits of the resurrected life. And all who are united to Christ by faith shall be made alive with Him. His resurrection guarantees the resurrection of all of His people. He is the source of the church’s life and the one who guarantees our redemption.
And so Jesus is preeminent, he is unsurpassed and exalted, over the church. Just as Jesus is lord over creation because it was made through Him, so Jesus is Lord over the church because it is also made through Him.
He is not a martyr who left us an example in His death; He is a living God who reigns on high to this day, guiding and leading those who are truly His church. You know, it occurs to me that most people in the church today would probably avoid the heresies inherent in the first two points of this sermon: we would not think that there are other gods besides Jesus. We would not think that Jesus is a created being, a mere human like us. But we might be prone to fall short of this aspect of Jesus: that He is the head of the body.
That is, we might fail to recognize Jesus as our head and our Lord. There are many Christians who claim that Jesus is the one and only God who created the universe, but they fail to let Jesus be their Lord by obeying Him in their life. It does us little good if we have all of our theology and doctrine about Jesus right if we do not let Him be the Lord in our life.
Some Christians claim that Jesus is the second person in the Trinity, but they fail to forgive people who hurt them. They claim that Jesus is the firstborn of the Creation but they will tear up a church with their gossip and pettiness. They claim that Jesus is the only way to be saved but they cheat on their spouse or let lust reign in their lives. But this cannot be: if Jesus is our savior he must also be our Lord.
And this is not just for the individual Christian but for the church as well. If Jesus is the head of the church then that means that we should be guided by Jesus in everything that we do. A church that does not believe in the Bible is not guided by Jesus, the author of the Bible. A church that does not teach and preach the Bible is not being the mouth of Jesus. A church that does not witness to the lost and the hurting is not letting the head guide it. A church that is fighting and tearing each other apart is guided by the father of chaos, not the father of love. A church that promotes sin and rebellion by calling sinful things permissible is not under the headship of Christ.
How sad that we might have all of our theology about Jesus but then be found lacking because we were not guided by our head: Jesus Christ. Jesus made this very clear about those who call on his name but fail to do what he says: Matt 7:19-23 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. 21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
If Jesus is your God then he will reign in your life; he will guide what you do in every aspect of your life. The reason this teaching is so important is because if you have a right view of Jesus it will affect every aspect of your life. Jesus will give you love and hope; He will give you strength; He will change the way you see the world; He will be the guide in your marriage and family; He will affect the way you treat people at your job: He will be your all in all.
Now that you have seen the picture of Christ I hope you realize that it is a picture bigger than anything we can imagine. We like to put Jesus in a little box, thinking that we have him all figured out. Yet Jesus is bigger than our thoughts, bigger than our imagination, bigger than our conceptions. I’m afraid that in our desire to make Jesus understandable we have made him smaller than he really is. He is not just a prophet. He is not just our buddy in heaven. He is not just a good example for us to follow. He is not just one path to God among many.
No, he is the very image of God.
The fullness of God dwells in him.
He is the Creator of the universe.
He is the head of the church.
He is the Lord of the Christian.
He is the ONLY way by which we can be saved.
He is the way, the truth, and the life.
He created us in the beginning.
He guides us in the present.
He will resurrect us in the future.
And what does all this mean? It means that Jesus is God, and that he reigns supreme. Good thing, too, for this means that he is big enough to save us. All of this theology is not just academic; it means the world to you.
If Jesus were just a teacher, he could not have spoken the very words of God.
If Jesus were just a prophet he could not have proclaimed salvation.
If Jesus were just an example he could not have died on the cross for our sins.
If Jesus were just a martyr he could not have risen from the dead to give us eternal life. If Jesus were just a philosopher he could not be reigning in heaven right now.
Listen to the last two verses of our passage, 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
It was through Jesus that God came to earth to reconcile to himself every sinner who would believe in him, so that through him we could have peace with God through the blood of Jesus shed on the cross. No mere man could do that. There could be no other way that this could have been done. It took God coming to earth, paying our penalty with his own life.
So, who is Jesus to you? I hope he’s not just a historical figure, a guy that you look up to, or just a name that you sing about on Sundays. He should be your God, your Creator, and your Savior. And if he is your God, he should be the head that guides you which means that you should be worshiping him and letting him and his words guide you in everything you do.
If he’s not, you can make him all those things today by believing in him and making him your Savior and your Lord.
And yet, there’s more. Redemption isn’t only for the church, but also for the creation itself. In verse 20 we read that God was pleased …through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven.
Now we don’t normally associate reconciliation with anything besides people. Reconciliation is about ending the hostility between two people. It’s about removing sin as a barrier to relationship. That’s what Jesus does for the church. And yet we read here that the fullness of God (meaning God the Father) was pleased through Jesus to reconcile to himself all things, and that would include other created things like the heaven and earth itself. So how do we explain that? In what way can we say that all things …on earth or in heaven will be reconciled to God?
Well, Paul wrote in Romans 8:21 about the last day that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption…. Creation is in bondage to corruption, that is, it is affected by the sin that has been introduced into it by man. The world that God declared as “very good” has been marred. It’s not the way it was intended to be. Creation itself has been altered.
In the garden, when God was pronouncing the curse on Adam and Eve, one of the aspects of the curse was this, …cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you…(Genesis 3:17-18).
The land was supposed to yield its bounty easily to man as part of God’s care for man. But because of the fall, now it is painful and more laborious to get food from the earth, to make a living. There are obstacles to overcome, the thorns and thistles are in the way.
Most of us aren’t farmers so we aren’t as close to that concept anymore. But if you have a job you recognize this. Your email doesn’t work, your printer jams, your car leaks oil and has go into the shop, you build something and it has a flaw and you have to start over. Everything gets dirty and needs to be cleaned. Everything degrades and needs to be replaced. This is part of the pain of living because of the fall.
Add to that all the disease that exists. You can’t get out of bed because you’ve got pneumonia or you can’t see well so you need glasses. We get cancer and arthritis. And then finally there is your own physical death. This is all part of the fall.
And add to that the presence of corrupted evil powers, the thrones and dominions, the rulers and authorities, the spiritual beings that seek to work us woe and resist us and keep mankind in bondage. Their presence is also part of the fall.
Creation has been corrupted and needs to be brought back to its divinely created order. And it is God’s intention, his plan, to do that. He will reconcile all things to himself. He will put things right. There will be a new heaven and a new earth that will not have on it any of the corruption of sin. Pain and death will be removed. And all the evil powers that now exist in the current heaven and earth will be dealt with. They will submit to a power they cannot resist and will be confined to the place of their judgment, never to trouble God’s people or God’s creation again. The curse will be removed.
The curse is found as far as the creation itself. But God is pleased to reconcile it, to bring it back to its created order. God’s goal in redemption is nothing less than a fully restored and glorified universe, where God and man dwell together in peace unbroken to eternity.
That’s what God affirms from his throne in Revelation 21:5 where he says, "Behold, I am making all things new." Through Jesus God is reconciling all things to himself. He is creating a redeemed humanity and a redeemed creation. Jesus is Lord of redemption.
And how does God reconcile all things to himself? By what means is it possible for the church to be redeemed and for the creation to be renewed? It’s all because of the cross.
Verse 20 says that God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. The curse of sin that ruined man and brought the creation into bondage is only undone by the one who bore the curse in himself.
All of our hope rests in Jesus, Lord of creation and Lord of redemption, who made peace by the blood of his cross.
CONCLUSION
Friends, that is who your deliverer is if you have trusted him for forgiveness of sins. That is a small glimpse at the glory of Jesus, who is mighty to save. And it is God’s intention that we might grow in our understanding of these things that we might do as Psalm 33:8 says, Let all the earth fear the LORD; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him!
A person can be saved and not know fully the implications of Christ’s lordship, John Piper writes: “[N]one of us yet understands the full implications of the lordship of Christ on our lives. I am struggling every day to know what the Lord is requiring of me in specific choices among good options. I am learning every day the extent of his lordly control of the world and his mysterious ways of fulfilling his promises as Lord of my life and my church. Submitting to the lordship of Christ is a lifelong activity. It must be renewed every day in many acts of trust and obedience. Submission to Christ’s lordship is not merely a once-for-all experience."
Our submission to Christ is imperfect and progressive, John Piper writes: “From the time of our first saving acceptance of Christ, He is our King and Lord and Savior and Priest and Prophet and Counselor. All that He is, He is for those who are His. And then begins a life of faltering and growing yieldedness to Christ in all that He is. This can come in the form of decisive crises, or in the form of gradually growing commitment, or in the form of daily surrenderings. The lordship of Christ, in reality, is something that is not discovered and yielded to once, but thousands of times. It is yieldedness to his lordship that is at stake every time we are tempted to sin---every day... All saved people own Jesus as Lord of their lives but live out that submission in greater or lesser degrees of consistency."
