Sermon Tone Analysis

Advent Reading

Today we light the 5th candle of the advent season.

This is the candle of Christ.

This candle represents the savior that God has given his people.

The living messiah, Jesus Christ.

We have been reconciled to God through him, our hope is in him, our joy is from him, our peace is because of him, and we are loved by him.

Because of God’s great love for us that has been poured out through Jesus Paul writes:

Announcements

Family Promise

Prayer

Today is the last day of the Advent season.

The advent season is a way for churches and believers to refocus on the first coming of Jesus.

That is what advent means.

it means to look forward to someone or some thing important sowing up.

The bible speaks of two times that Jesus will arrive.

The first is when he was born as precious little baby.

He grew and lived a sinless life.

He spent three years of ministry proclaiming to the world that he was the son of God and that he was the messiah.

We know looking back that Jesus lived.

There is no question about that.

History speaks of a man who caused massive disruption to the Roman and Jewish community.

Historians record them but at that time few believed in him and in the end they crucified him on a cross.

There were many eye witnesses that claimed they saw him alive and risen from the dead and that he has saved them from their sins.

That he has forgiven them of their wrong doing.

Today is Christmas, the day that in reality has many different meanings for many different people.

As believers it represents the birth of our Lord and savior.

the one who has saved us from our sins and sustains us each and every day.

As we read scripture we see that there is a natural tendency for people to walk away from God and and to create their own world.

This summer we studied Malachi and the entire book was about how Isreal had walk away from God in many aspects of their lives.

We see the new testament full of warnings about false teachers and calls for the church to go back to the original teachings of Jesus and the apostles.

The question must be asked do we focus on Jesus more on Christmas than any other day of the year?

Do we do our own thing through out the year and then catch up on Christmas and Easter.

What if that is how we lived our lives with our spouses.

We do our own thing all year and then play catch up on our anniversary and their birthday.

That’s not a healthy way of living but we do that so often.

We see the church moving further and further from the center of the gospel and creating new ways attracting followers.

Truth is less and less clear and people are more and more confused about who Jesus really is and why he really came.

Today we are going to refocus on who he is and why he came.

To help put him in the right place today.

This isn’t elf on the shelf.

This is Jesus in Center of all.

Join me as we read our main text this morning.

Colossians 1:14–23 (CSB)

In him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

For everything was created by him, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities— all things have been created through him and for him.

He is before all things, and by him all things hold together.

He is also the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile everything to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Once you were alienated and hostile in your minds as expressed in your evil actions.

But now he has reconciled you by his physical body through his death, to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before him—if indeed you remain grounded and steadfast in the faith and are not shifted away from the hope of the gospel that you heard.

This gospel has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and I, Paul, have become a servant of it.

Jesus over All Creation

Colossians 1:14 (CSB)

In him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

God has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son he loves and in Christ we have redemption, full redemption.

What does it mean to be redeemed?

Redemption is the release of people, animals, or property from bondage through the payment of a price.

Each and every person that was ever born was born into the bondage of sin.

The price to make the payment to be free has never been attainable by man’s own work.

Like property, it is out of their control to be able to make the payment to be free.

We needed someone to make the payment on our behalf.

That person was and is the little baby Jesus.

It was his life that God required to release man from the bondage of sin.

To be forgiven of our transgressions and sins.

But he wasn’t born to die.

Paul explains that Jesus is more than just a substitute for corrupted men and women.

That he is the over all.

That he is over all of creation.

He has conquered over death and he continues to reign over his church and believers.

Colossians 1:15 (CSB)

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

God has no form that we would see.

As scripture says no one has ever seen God except through Jesus who reveals the Father.

1 Timothy 6:15–16 (CSB)

God will bring this about in his own time.

He is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings, and the Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see, to him be honor and eternal power.

Amen.

John 1:18 (CSB)

No one has ever seen God.

The one and only Son, who is himself God and is at the Father’s side—he has revealed him.

God has been reveled through Jesus to mankind.

He is the firstborn over all creation.

This word firstborn mean to come first or precedes others.

So he preceded all created things.

Colossians 1:16 (CSB)

For everything was created by him, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities— all things have been created through him and for him.

Paul says that everything was created by him.

Everything in heaven and on earth.

The visible and the invisible.

All of the authorities of this world were created by him.

All things have been created by him, through him, for him.

John reiterates this in

John 1:3 (CSB)

All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created.

Romans 11:36 (CSB)

For from him and through him and to him are all things.

To him be the glory forever.

Amen.

So what does this leave out.