Colossians 1:15-20

I think that's my cue, am I right? I don't want to have to go back and then come back up again. But didn't confirm that with the second service, but I assume it's the same schedule, so. Well, welcome this morning. How come nobody sits up here?

Is there something. Okay. I don't know. It's like, that's the pastor spot. You don't sit there.

I don't know, but I just. Just realized that, like, nobody sitting in that area. Like, if you, if you guys feel a little scrunched back there, there's room up here if you need to. But it's good to be here. My name is Josh.

I've been a partner with this church as a missionary for a number of years. In fact, I would say if you don't recognize me, you either haven't been paying attention over the years or you're new to church here, so. But welcome. It's always good to be back even. Even when it is thunderstorm like that.

In fact, the first, first service, like that storm came in as I was preaching, and it was right, almost perfect timing that a thunderclap happened at kind of an emphatic moment in the sermon. It's just beautiful. And I'm gonna try to time that one with the next storm. So if you're looking at your phone and you're like, wait a minute, that doesn't come till 2:00 clock this afternoon.

Well, you know, we're just gonna. It's really critical for the message that. That thunder. No. Oh, no.

But I have the joy of serving as a missionary, but not in maybe one of the ways that you think. I don't live overseas. I travel overseas about six times a year, so usually about every other month, and teach the Bible to pastors that don't have access to theological training, pastoral training, and it's just a joy. Over the last couple years, I mostly traveled to the Philippines. I've been working with a group there, and we'll continue to be doing that over the next few years.

In fact, in about a month, I'll be in the Philippines teaching the Book of Revelation, where that last song we sang was kind of anchored in some of the imagery of Revelation. The. The incense is the prayers of the saints going up to the throne of God. Revelation is just an awesome book and it's not meant to be scary. It's meant to lead us into worship as we just did.

So I'm looking forward to teaching that book and working with those guys there. My family and I Live in the Minnesota, in Minnesota, in the Twin Cities area, kind of southwest suburbs. We have one kid still in high school for one more year. And then, then, I don't know, you guys who have gone through that will have to tell me what changes after that, because I don't know if I'm ready for it. I don't know if I'm ready for it.

But I love, I love the Bible. I hope you see that as I open it and teach it this morning, preach it. And one of the things I want to do is invite you to that class on Friday night and Saturday morning. If you can't make Saturday morning, just come Friday night. If you can't make Friday night, come Saturday morning, we'll, we'll catch you up.

It won't be that, that difficult, but it's just going to be a great time getting kind of oriented in God's Word and seeing how the Bible fits together, how it tells us about God and how we are meant to know God through his word, the Scriptures. And I hope, I hope that's what is one of the things that's accomplished this morning as we jump into the book of Colossians. Colossians, Chapter one is where you can turn. I'm actually here next week, so if you're not here, then I will take that personally. I'm here next week and I'll be preaching a passage from the end of the Book of Coloss.

So I'm going to just throw out a challenge to you. I didn't. I forgot to do this with the first service. But my challenge is this week, read the book of Colossians and you're like a whole book of the Bible. It's only four chapters.

Average person takes well under 30 minutes if you just read it through at relatively regular speed. So you can break it up if you want. I would encourage you to do it in one sitting, maybe as a family at dinnertime. Just read through the book of Colossians and, you know, there might be a quiz next week. Who knows?

We'll see. No, there won't be a quiz, but I think it'll be helpful for you for next week's sermon to read through the book. And I'm going to start at the beginning, well, near the beginning of the book. And then we'll kind of give you an orientation of that whole book, Lord willing. Over those two sermons today, we're going to look at Colossians 1, beginning in verse 15.

And this section is a section of the Bible that is every time you Read a commentary on Colossians. The writer Will Scholar will kind of pause and just say, this is. We're entering glorious territory. In fact, one author, John Woodhouse, an Australian guy, he writes this. He says, I cannot remember being more deeply overwhelmed than I am with the extraordinary words that are before us here in chapter one, verses 15 through 20.

This is a guy that. He's written commentaries about all kinds of books in the Old and New Testament. He says, this is the spot where I am most deeply overwhelmed. And we're going to jump into that this morning. Paul is writing to a little church in the town of Colossae.

It's a church that is kind of unexceptional. It's not a big church. Paul's never visited this church. It's kind of out of the way, overshadowed by some other big churches in the area, maybe. But Paul's writing them because there's some concerns, some things he needs to emphasize, and he does hope to visit them one time.

We don't know if he actually ever made it there. I'd like to think that he did, but we'll see, I guess. In the first few verses, Paul has opened and he's prayed, essentially. He's kind of written out his prayers. He's given thanks for the encouraging word.

He has heard about the Colossian church, even though he's never visited there. He's gotten news from there. Paul's in prison at this time. He wants to go, but he's in chains. He can't go.

And he continues to pray for the church through the first 14 verses. He asks God to fill the church with a knowledge of His Word, will and a plan of redemption. All of this is just centered on the person and work of Jesus Christ in the first chapter, in fact, verse 13, it's really this culmination of Paul's initial prayer. And he says that God the Father has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of our sins. And I just.

Man, that verse is just amazing that God took us out like a rescue mission behind enemy lines, took us out of the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, where we now find our joy and hope and freedom. And it's really with that mention of the Father's beloved Son, Jesus, that causes Paul to essentially launch into song here, Starting in verse 15, verses 15 through 20, maybe even 23, are likely a song that the early church in the first century, when this was written would have sung on a Sunday. Paul may have authored the song, or he may be quoting a song that they were familiar with and just kind of made its way around the churches. And so verses 15 through 20, maybe 23 even, are part of that song. It's a song that is meant to be sun sung and remembered in the church.

And it is beautiful, it is lofty and poetic and glorious and weighty. I wish I could spend more time on all the pieces of it, but we're just going to get through the first lines. And so let's pray as we go into God's word, our Father God, in order for the truth of these glorious and weighty words to reach into us, we do need your spirit to open our eyes and our hearts to see the preeminent supreme glory of Jesus through whom we have the forgiveness of sins. So may our hearts this morning be captivated by Christ Jesus, and it's in his name that we pray. Amen.

Well, let me just start with a simple question to think about. Frames this passage here. And that question is, who is Jesus? It would have been a very relevant question for people in the 1st century in Colossae because they didn't grow up going to vacation Bible school during the summer or, you know, going to grandma's Sunday school class when they were at grandma's church and hearing a little bit about Jesus. Even if they didn't go to church regularly, they didn't get that they saw the temple of Zeus, the temple of Apollo, the temple of Athena, all these temple.

I mean, there were hundreds of temples all over and worship of various gods. And so when the news of Jesus came to a city like Colossae, the question would have been, well, who is this Jesus? Who is he? And that's relevant in that day and it's relevant in our day. Who is Jesus?

We may have more popular knowledge of Jesus, but the real core truths of who Jesus is is that known and embraced. And not just who is Jesus? But is he better than the alternatives? Is he better than Zeus? Or is he better than Apollo?

Or is he better than my love of. You can fill in the blank there, whatever your idol might be. So in the passage today, we just have one of the more stunning, exhilarating and poetic answers to that question. Who is Jesus? It may be one of the most important texts in your Bible.

And I'm going to read this and I'm going to replace the pronouns he and him with Jesus just for clarity's sake. Okay, so just listen to the passage here. We're going to go 15 through 18 this morning. Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all, all creation. For by Jesus 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 Jesus. And for Jesus, and he, Jesus is before all things. And in Jesus all things hold together. And Jesus is the head of the body, the church. Jesus is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead.

That in everything Jesus might be preeminent.

Do you hear some emphasis that Paul has in there? Maybe it's in the way that I read it. Remember, this is a song and songs sometimes get stuck in our head. And this can be a good thing and it can be annoying thing, right? It can be a helpful learning technique to have a song in your head.

Like if you want to learn your musical scales, you just go to Maria and think doe, a deer, female deer. And you get that in your head and you're like, okay, I get that stuck in my head. And I know do re me, I won't do that too much. But some of you have that stuck in your head now, right? And you're like great, that's going to be there for a while.

Now in my head I don't usually have a lot of learning type songs. I get songs that just, I don't know where they came from or why, but it just gets stuck in there. Recent Boundary Waters trip with my son. He had the white striped seven nation army humming in his head for the entire five days, Five days of that with no technology to replace it with anything else. And my at that time, 16 year old son, Five days and now that's going to be in our heads for the rest of the day, right?

So you're welcome for that. It just really, that doesn't serve any instructive purpose. It's just kind of annoying. Well, this song here, verses 15 through 18 and beyond even the song we read, it is meant to get stuck in your head. I hope the truths and the words of this passage get stuck in your head this morning.

So let's do what we can. As we walk through the psalm line number one starts and Paul says, remember who is Jesus? He is the image of the invisible God. Now that's an interesting way to start, isn't it? Maybe a little surprising way.

In fact there's a few words in there that you would hear and like that seems like a very important word, that word image. If you know your Bibles, you're like, that goes back a Ways, in fact, all the way back to Genesis chapter one, where humanity, Adam and Eve, are made in the image of God. And so here Paul says Jesus is the image of the invisible God. The invisible God. I mean, throughout the Old Testament, God cannot be seen.

He is Spirit. He is invisible. Paul describes God the Father in the New Testament as he writes to Timothy and says that that God dwells in unapproachable light whom no one has ever seen or can see. You cannot see God. And throughout the whole Old Testament, humanity could neither see nor approach God.

And in his holiness and in his power, he could not be seen.

But that changed when a baby was born to Mary in Bethlehem. The apostle John would say this. After seeing Jesus live and die and rise again and ascend to heaven, he would say, no one has ever seen God but God. The only Son who is at the Father's side has made him known. You can't see God, but God the Son makes God the Father known.

Jesus, God the Son is the image of the invisible God. One commentator writes and says, as God's representation and representative, Christ brings clarity to our hazy notions of the immortal, invisible God who lives in unapproachable light. And here's the key. In Christ, we see who God is. And this song, this passage is going to pull that, show that.

Like, how do we see God? How do we, in Christ see who God is? Jesus perfectly represents God. What's an image? Like if you have a picture on your home screen of family or a loved one or something like that, it's meant to represent them to you.

You see something greater in that, you see something more. And so if you want to know who God is, Paul's saying, look to Jesus. He's the image of the invisible God. He's going to say, he's much more than that, but he's a way to know God. A coin will have President, in our case a Caesar back in Paul's day, as an image of that.

And it represents that ruler, that authority figure in Christ, we see who God is. Genesis 1. Again, in the beginning, God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them and God blessed them.

And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. So at the very beginning of creation, God creates the first man and the woman and says, be fruitful and multiply and bear my image. Take the knowledge, represent me to the earth. Fill the earth with a knowledge of who I am and my glory. That's what humanity's mission is to fill the earth with a knowledge of the glory of God.

Humans, you and I, are created to bear God's image, to be his representatives on Earth, to fill the Earth with a knowledge of the glory of God. And after we're given this mission role, the first humans, Adam and Eve, failed miserably at that job. Miserably. And then throughout history, billions of humans have continued to fail to represent God fully. When you break God's word, when you're envious, jealous, when you sin, you're a poor image of God.

Then when you don't show mercy and love to someone in need, you're not representing God well. And we've all failed miserably there, haven't we? Human after human after human, all created in God's image to bear his image meant to display his glory. All fail until. Until Jesus was born in Bethlehem and that this child would perfectly obey the will of God the Father.

Unlike you and I, unlike Adam and Eve, he was without sin. He image represented God perfectly. The author of Hebrews says this. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. And he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

Well, how did Jesus accomplish when all other humans fail? And the answer is because unlike Adam, unlike Eve, unlike you, and certainly unlike me, Jesus was not just a human. He was God himself in human flesh. We fail to bear the image properly. We fail to represent God properly.

So God the Father sent, God the Son. Son empowered by God the Spirit, to do what created humans failed to do. And Jesus did it. He represented God fully. He is the image of the invisible God.

Until Bethlehem, God could not be seen, and approaching him involved elaborate rites and sacrifices and ceremonies. But God made himself known and knowable through the incarnation of Jesus. Who is Jesus? He's the image of the invisible God. But it doesn't stop there.

Because it might be tempting then to just think that Jesus is kind of just like a glorious human. He's a perfect human. Someone finally got it right. And that's true. But there's more that we're going to see.

Adam failed, but Jesus got it right. That's true. There's more, though we've only just begun with this little song here. Paul will add now another description in the second half of that verse. Jesus, the image of the invisible God is also the firstborn of all creation.

What does that mean? It's possible to hear the word firstborn and think that what this would mean, that Jesus, like the rest of Creation was created. I mean, if you were born, if you're the firstborn, you were created by someone or two people, I would say, and I can see why that would be considered an initial reading. That Jesus the firstborn, well, that seems like he must have been created. But don't go there, because that's heresy.

And I don't want you to enter that. Jesus was not a created being. And you can see that just by the next verse, in verse 16, by him all things were created. So of course he's not created. If he created all things, he wasn't created.

He is the creator. But then the puzzle is, well, what does it mean that he's the firstborn of all creation? That word firstborn, it can mean the first to come, but it also has this meaning even more than the first to be brought into existence. It's not just a chronological thing of this guy came first, he was created first. It really can refer to more of a hierarchy.

In fact, God will describe his chosen king in the Book of Psalms this way. He says, I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the king, kings of the earth. And so that that sense of the word firstborn means that that person has priority and supremacy, not necessarily chronology, though that might be true. The firstborn means that that person is the most important. And in the ancient near east culture, that firstborn son would have had tremendous importance to carry on the family name, to inherit most of the family property.

There was a sense there that first firstborn meant greatest. John will write, by the way, for those of you that are sitting next to your brother or sister right now, don't take that one home as the main point of the sermon. Okay? That was then. That was just a cultural observation, not anything that you can now say, ha, I am.

Okay, I'll let your parents work at that one, at the lunch table here on this one. But here's what John will say. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was was God. And then later, in case you're struggling to do the math, he'll write, the Word became flesh and dwelt. So the Word which was God became flesh and dwelt among us.

And we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. Well, who is the Word that was pre existent there that John is speaking of? It's Jesus who is Jesus? John will say, jesus is God. Jesus is the Word, and the Word was God.

The Word was God, and the Word is Jesus. Jesus Therefore is God. Why? Because Paul will say he's the source of all things in creation. He created all things.

That's what God does. Here we're told that Jesus was there before the creation of the universe. He was active in creating the universe. Jesus isn't simply a picture or an image or an example of God, though He is that he is God. And a little bit of a letdown perhaps for some of you, you're not.

So who is Jesus? Jesus is the image of the invisible God which we are supposed to be and have failed. But Jesus is also the firstborn of all creation. He is before for all things. And as Paul mentions creation, he now switches it up a bit.

He's going to spend a little bit more time now not just looking at Jesus identity, but his activity and his relationship to all creation. Is Jesus really supreme over all creation? I mean, there's a lot of chaotic stuff out there. We just saw a thunderstorm whip through here and drop I don't know how many inches of rain in like 10 minutes. It seemed.

Is Jesus greater than that? And Paul will say, yes, a resounding, unequivocal, absolute, undeniable. You better believe Jesus is better because listen to the next two verses, verses 16 and 17. For by Jesus, 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 Jesus for Jesus.

And he is before all things and in him all things hold together. Man, that is a. I don't have a lot of people say that about me. In fact, I don't think anyone ever has. And if there is, I would really question their sanity. Paul has shifted from describing Jesus as an image or the firstborn to describing what Jesus has done and is doing.

He is the creator and the sustainer of about, from my estimation here, 37% of things. No, right. No, it's not 50%. It's not just 51. He's got a majority share over the earth.

It is all things. He is preeminent in everything. All things. All things. All.

I mean, Paul just litters this passage with that little phrase. And I love the song that we sang that kind of captured that a little bit. Jesus is the creator and the sustainer. Listen, if your picture of Jesus, if what you think of when you think of Jesus is kind of like a simple carpenter who told people to be nice to each other, that's not wrong, but that's pretty incomplete. If your picture of Jesus is a baby in a manger and you've got two people bowing and then you got these kings coming in and some shepherds coming, coming in, the cattle are lowing, all that kind of stuff.

That was true, but that's pretty incomplete when you think about Jesus. If your picture of Jesus is a Jewish teacher filled with wisdom, well, that's true, but that's not complete. If your picture of Jesus is a bearded guy in a robe and sandals who like to take long walks, that is true. But your Jesus is really too small because, I mean, what does Paul say here? By Jesus, by that baby in a manger, by that guy in the sandals, by that carpenter, all things were created and all things exist for him and are held together by him.

That's more than a baby, that's more than a carpenter. To use Josh McDowell's old line from his book. All things were created by him, all things were created through him. All things were created for him to nothing comes before him, all things were held together in him. I mean, if you're a fan of prepositions, this is your favorite verse in the Bible, because you got by through for before in.

There's probably more in here. If you don't know what a preposition is, ask a high school student. They'll tell you what they've learned. Well, probably what they forgot this summer. But a good Jewish boy like Paul, or Jesus from that matter would have said that there is one singular God who created all things.

I mean, the old Testament, Deuteronomy 6 says God, the Lord. The Lord is God, our God is one. In fact, Genesis 1:1, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. So there's one God who created. And then the New Testament comes around after Jesus.

And it seems like it kind of messes with some of that formula a little bit because here echoing Genesis 1:1, in the beginning, God created all things. Paul will say, by Jesus, all things were created. You're like, wait, wait a minute. Can it be? Is it God in the Old Testament or is it Jesus who created all things?

I mean, if you thought that's confusing. In the Book of John, John, clearly speaking about Jesus, wrote that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. So which is it? Did God create or did Jesus create?

Who was the pre existent source and therefore the ruler of all things, Jesus or God? And the answer of course is yes. And if you're like, that doesn't make sense. Welcome to understanding the Trinity. You will never fully wrap your mind around the glories of the truth.

Truth that God eternally exists as Father, as Son, Jesus and as Spirit eternally exists. There has never been a point where God the Son, God the Spirit and God the Father did not all exist. And there never will be a point where they do not all exist. And yet the Old Testament can say God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit. God is one, but he eternally exists in three.

Father, Son and Spirit. If you're like that, doesn't make good mathematic sense. It's not math. It's not meant to be math. Jesus is God the Son.

He is God. However, he's not God the Father. He's also not God the Spirit. There is distinction among members of the Trinity, however, Jesus is God. And that's what Paul wants you to see as he writes or quotes this hymn, that Jesus is the Firstborn.

He is over all things. He created all things. He holds all things together. Jesus is God. And it's at points like this that we realize how high and glorious the truths are that we're contemplating here.

And T. Wright states it this what was said before in reference to Israel's God, Yahweh, things like Creator, Sustainer, those things are now said in reference to Jesus Christ. He has not displaced the God of Abraham, the God of Exodus, the God of Creation, even he has made him known. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And then Paul will say 1 Corinthians. Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist.

And then one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. Well, who is it? Is it through God the Father, Paul? Or is it through God the Son? And Paul attaches those lines, that description to the same, to both.

Because Jesus is God, the Father is God, and this is glorious truth. All things come into existence through the one God, the Father, and the one Lord, Jesus Christ. Paul, the Colossian Church, the Corinthian Church, the Church in Lake Wisconsin, Evangelical Free Church here, all of us. Where does our existence come from? It comes from the one God, Father.

It comes from Jesus. God, Father, Son and Spirit, created all things and sustains all things. It means Jesus created all things and sustains all things. And these are just the core Christian doctrine of the Trinity, that the one true God eternally exists. Father, Son and Spirit.

We cannot fully understand that. We hold that in some level of tension. But it's so important in your Bibles. And that's why Paul's Writing Colossians, John Calvin warns us. He says this.

Unless we grasp these, this truth about the Trinity, unless we grasp this, only the bare and empty name of God flits about in our brains to the exclusion of the true God, who is the true God eternally existing in three persons, God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit. In other words, if you, unless you think of God as triune, you aren't thinking of the true God. If you just think of some nebulous void power, you're not thinking of God, you're not thinking of the biblical God you're understanding is bare and empty according to Calvin. So to be a Christian means that you can say there is one true God and He eternally exists as Father, Son and Spirit. To be a Christian means you believe Jesus is God.

And once again, if your picture of Jesus is a simple Jewish carpenter who told people to be nice, there's truth to that. But it's way more if you want to know who Jesus is, He's. He's over everything. Everything exists for him. I mean, all things.

All things. All things is what Paul uses throughout here. And does he really mean everything? Of course he means that. Let me just.

He clarifies it. If you don't think it means it's everything in heaven and everything in earth, everything that's visible and everything invisible. I mean that pretty much there's no, there's nothing between that. It's either visible or invisible. Right?

Thrones, dominions, rulers, authorities, even those powerful things. Jesus is over them. And that covers everything. All physical and spiritual reality is created and sustained by Jesus. Everything you can see and everything you can't see is from and for Jesus.

And I love this phrase, he holds all things together. What does that mean? Christ has precedence over all things, one commentator says, in terms of time and status, and is a kind of divine glue or spiritual gravity that holds creation together. God did not simply start things off and then withdraw from his creation. Christ continues to sustain the whole universe.

Jesus keeps the cosmos from becoming a chaos.

He sustains. He holds all things together. In other words, nothing makes sense without Jesus as central and supreme. That's why I appreciate singing those songs about Jesus reigning over all his worthiness. Because he is.

Overall, nothing makes sense unless he is there. Everything falls apart without Jesus. Above all, this is. This is the human tragedy as we tried to push, put ourselves in that place. And that doesn't work, that doesn't hold.

That becomes chaos. Right? Reality and purpose and human existence hold no meaning. If Christ is not Supreme. So let's personalize this for a second because we kind of like went super theological with the Trinity stuff and maybe your head's swimming around a little bit.

It means that Jesus, without Jesus, your existence has no meaning.

Without Jesus, you have no hope. In the words of Ecclesiastes, it's meaningless vanity. Jesus is the one who brings it all together and holds it all together. If Christ is supreme and central in your life, your life has meaning, then your chaotic life, chaos will still be there because there's still sin out there for now. But your chaotic life has meaning.

However, as Paul states, by Jesus, all things were created. All things were created through him and for him. Before all things in him, all things were hold together. If that's true, then to use Garland's words once again, Christ is more than the force that preserves the orderly arrangement of the cosmos. He is the rationale, its rhyme and its reason.

He's the end for which all things are created as well. If this is true, then it means we have a difficult question to ask. I mean, we've said these truths about Jesus supremacy that are massive truths, massive claims. And then we look around and we say, if Jesus is reigning over all as we sang and confessed, why is everything so messed up? Why is there so much brokenness and pain and evil in the world?

Well, Paul doesn't mention sin. He doesn't mention the fall and the rebellion against God here. But it's there in the background. Something has gone wrong. Jesus created all.

All things exist for him, but not all things are currently subject to Him. There is a rebellion to his authority. And here's where the poem shifts to what Jesus is doing right now and what Jesus is moving towards. So remember our key question. Who is Jesus image, firstborn of all creation?

He's also the head of the body, then the church in verse 18. In other words, the one who created and sustains the entire universe is the creator and sustainer of his people, the church. And that means something bigger than this church, but it also means specifically this church. Jesus is the author of this church. Jesus is the head of this church.

The one who created and sustains the entire universe is the one who created and sustains your church. It's tempting to think that Paul's kind of turned the volume down a little bit. I don't think he has, because he's connecting the local church to the cosmos. And it's a massive statement. Something is just.

There's a massive truth beginning to weave together here. All things exist through, by, for and In Jesus, he is supreme. But there's a rebellion on our planet. There's now death and evil and throughout the cosmos, but there's. There's an absolute brokenness around us.

But Jesus is going to fix it. He is, in the process, will be the rest of Colossians. He's in the process of reconciling all things. And he started that work among his people, the church. He's the beginning of something.

He has started something by his death and resurrection and ascension to the right hand of the throne of God. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, the first to rise from the dead. And that means his resurrection, his triumph over sin, initiates something significant and cosmic in scale. Not just local sin and rebellion brought death. Jesus entered the world, suffered and died, but not because of his sin and rebellion.

He's the one whom we rebelled against. He died so that he could launch a new creation through his resurrection. And this begins with his resurrection from the dead and his establishment of the church. And it's moving towards a glorious end where all things will be subject to him as the church now goes and bears fruit and multiplies, just like Adam and Eve were called to do. Your life, your church is part of something cosmically massive.

In fact, Paul will say that the work done through the local church is meant to be a display to spiritual powers in the universe of God's power. In other words, God is pointing to this church and all other churches and saying, look what I can do. And angels and demons are looking at us.

I mean, that. That changes how you worship a little bit on Sunday, right? That handshake you give afterwards, it's meant to display something that has reconciled to the cosmic powers. I wish I could get into that in the rest of Colossians. It's.

It's amazing. And one day, one day, at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow, some in subjection and some in worship. Every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So who is Jesus?

He is Lord. He's the head of the church, and he's the firstborn from the dead. He's the hope of a new beginning. Why does it matter? As Paul ends, he says at this little section, he says that in everything, he might be preeminent.

This is where history is heading. Christ was preeminent, and he is preeminent over the church. But all things right now do not acknowledge his superiority. So history is moving toward a time where he will be seen and celebrated as preeminent. And that work of reconciliation starts in the church.

And we'll see that in detail next week when we get into one example of that. So it means at the core, God's plan, though certainly not centered on you, involves you. God's plan for the universe involves you. I mean, that's crazy, isn't it? You, your family, your work, your church, all have a purpose in Him.

In fact, they only have a satisfying purpose in Him. Without him, before, above, and at the center of your existence, it all falls apart into chaos.

Well, let me wrap this up here. If you can believe it or not, I'm not a physicist.

I was expecting somebody to say, are you serious? I thought for sure you were. No one's ever mistaken me for a physicist. I somehow escaped high school with a C in physics. I'm not proud of that.

I think they gave me a C just because they didn't want me back the next year to take it again. But I'm told that physicists have a desire and something they're searching for. So physicists like Stephen Hawking would seek a unified field theory of everything. And don't worry, I'm not going to try to explain it. But anyway, they would say there's these basic fields forces in the world, like when you look at gravity or electromagnetism and other things, just basic forces, but we don't know how they fit together.

If we can figure out how all this stuff fits together, and this is Hawking's like idea, so you can write that down, as you know, it's. You want. If we can find that unified field theory, then it will explain the existence and purpose of the universe. And at least in the minds of these theoretical physicists, if you can explain all that goes on, then in the subatomic realm of particle physics, you can explain everything, since everything is made of subatomic particles. Well, I'm way out of my league here.

I agree, I agree. But I think it's fair to say that in Colossians 1, 15, 18, we have that grand unifying theory of everything. And I'm not saying that if you dig into some subatomic particles deep enough, like, you know, Ant man does, you'll find some microscopic subatomic Jesus kind of holding everything together. That's not where I want you to go. But I am saying that it's most basic fundamental reality.

Jesus has his grip on everything. He holds it all together. And that though things have been broken, he is restoring and uniting and reconciling all things to himself through his body. The church. There is a source of life, and it is not random chance.

There is a purpose in your existence, but it's not you. That source and purpose, the beginning and the end, the alpha and the Omega, is Jesus. Jesus is the grand unifying theory of everything. So you physicists in the audience here, you can find a different job, I guess. Actually, no, keep.

Keep exploring the glories of the universe, but. But understand that Jesus is it. You'll never see that through a telescope or a microscope or the Large Hadrian Collider, though. You'll only find it in Jesus. G.K. chesterton reflected on this, and he said this in his typical style.

He said, I am the man who with utmost daring, discovered what had been discovered before. I freely confess all the idiotic ambitions of the end of the 19th. I did, like all the other solemn, idiotic little boys, try to be in advance of the age. Like them, I tried to be 10 minutes in advance of the truth, and I found that I was 1800 years behind it. Do you look at the world and see random chaos?

Do you look at your life and see a chaotic mess? Sometimes we look at the church, our churches, and see chaos. We've had our fair share in our church. Do you despair because there seems to be no purpose or goal or meaning? Jesus crushes that despair.

He answers each of those. And as we see his supremacy and his preeminence, it brings order to the seeming chaos of history and the seeming chaos of our individual lives. It doesn't clean up everything. There's still work to do. But as we step back and look at the grand, unifying Jesus in all things, we move from despair to hopeful, joyous worship.

Jesus is preeminent. So let me just read that passage one more time. Listen once more. Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Jesus, 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 Jesus. And for Jesus. And Jesus is before all things. And in Jesus, all things hold together. And Jesus is the head of the body, body the church.

He's the beginning, the firstborn from the dead. That in everything, Jesus might be preeminent. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we ask that we might see you as beautifully and gloriously preeminent over all creation. Even when we see chaos, may we know that you are reigning over all things and you are reconciling all.

All things. As head of the church. All of history, all of our church, all of our lives find their meaning and hope. Only in you. May we find joy in your preeminence.

Amen.

Amen.