Magnifying Christ - 030203

MAGNIFYING CHRIST

SUNDAY MARCH 2ND, 2003

When kids are real little, maybe not even a year old, they can barely speak. Parents will often ask them a question. They put their kids through a routine. Especially if you're a firstborn, you have to go through these kinds of routines a lot.

One of the questions parents ask their kids over and over is, how big are you? Dozens of times sometimes they'll ask a kid, week after week, month after month, so that you think the kid would get sick of it: "How big are you?"

And kids always give the same response. Anybody know what they say? So big. That's right, kind of a sing-song and with the hand deal -- so big. Kids say, "I'm so big. I'm enormous. I'm huge. There's no telling how big I may be, just vast."

Now, this is not a scientific response, of course. You could not use it in every context. Like if your spouse were to say, "How big do my hips look to you?" you wouldn't want to say, "So big."

But with little kids we want them to say that because we want them to know they're growing. We want them to think of themselves as becoming increasingly independent and strong. We don't want little kids to think of themselves as small or weak.

We don't want them to lack confidence because we know the way they think about themselves matters. It's going to get reflected over and over in the way they live. The way they think of themselves is going to get reflected in the way they live.

Now,           this morning we're going to devote this time to maybe the most important question in the world, and the question is, how big is your God?

That's right, he is so big. You don't have to answer that one, but that's not a bad answer to the question.

How big is Christ in your life? Because friends, I am deeply and passionately convinced that the way that you live will be a direct consequence of the size of your God.

The problem that most of us have is that our God is too small. We are not convinced that we are absolutely perfectly safe in the hands of a fully competent, all-knowing, ever-present God. We're not convinced of that in our bones.

There was a movie a few years ago -- some of you may remember it -- called "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids." They were normal-sized kids, but they got shrunk way down. I think if some of our lives were made into a movie, the truth of it is, we've kind of shrunk God down. "I have made you too small in my eyes," goes one of our songs around here.

Now, tomorrow morning when you wake up, what's going to happen if you live with a shrunken God? You're going to live in a constant state of fear and anxiety because everything depends on you. Your mood is going to be governed by your circumstance.

When you have a chance to share your faith, you're going to tend to shrink back because what if you're rejected or what if you can't find the right words? It all depends on you.

You're not going to be able to be generous in your giving because your financial security depends on you.

When you need to give somebody a strong word of confrontation or challenge you're going to be likely to pull your punch because if you don't live in the security of a big God's acceptance of you, you become a slave to what others think.

If you live tomorrow with a shrunken God, when you face the temptation to speak deceitful words to your kids, you'll probably do it.

When you have a chance to get credit for something at work that doesn't really belong to you, you'll probably do it because you won't have the trust in a big God who sees all in secret and one day will reward.

If somebody gets mad at you or disapproves of you, there's a good chance you'll get twisted all up in knots because you don't have the security of knowing that if a giant God loves you, what difference does it make what anybody else thinks?

When human beings shrink God, friends, they offer prayers without faith, worship without awe, service without joy, and suffering without hope. It results in fear, retreat, loss of vision and failure to persevere. The little God syndrome is misery and tragedy. A lot of us go through days with a little God.

Now, it's against this backdrop, this tragic scenario, that the writers of Scripture never tire of telling us the God we serve is no little God, no tribal god like the people in ancient times were used to thinking of -- just little tribal gods.

There's another movie that came out a few years ago called "Big" about a little kid who magically becomes big, fully grown. Is your God a shrunken God, a small God? Or is he big? As big as the God of the Bible?

In all the New Testament, I don't know that there's another passage that gives us a greater picture of the exalted Christ than this section in Colossians. So I'm going to read it. Actually the first set of verses, 15 through 20, are almost universally understood among New Testament scholars to have been a hymn -- such exalted language and careful pictures of this cosmic Christ that it was used as a hymn to express praise, wonder and awe of the early church.

Most likely Paul writes it here because at Colosse, there was a heresy this church faced. We know some from just careful study of the book that among other things it tended to view Jesus as just one among many gods.

There was a belief system in those days, the belief that God was purely Spirit, which we believe also, but that matter, physical creation was evil, was bad, and so God would have nothing to do with it. Therefore, the idea that Jesus could have become God made flesh was unthinkable to them. So they kind of believed in Jesus, but he wasn't a big Jesus. He wasn't God.

Well, in our day, friends, we wouldn't subscribe to that kind of heresy. We don't think of ourselves as being heretical people, but I think a lot of us live with a kind of implicit heresy that shrinks Jesus down.

Let's read Colossians 1:15 and following, and just let the significance of each line sink in. This is majestic language, friends. Speaking of Christ now.

"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers -- all things have been created through him and for him.

"He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.

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

Now, that's the hymn, and then 21 through 23 Paul is applying it now to the church at Colosse.

"And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him -- provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven. I, Paul, became a servant of this gospel."

Friends, how big is your God?

Several years ago now, I was walking with some elders from the church that I used to serve in Southern California. We were walking near the ocean in Newport Beach, California. As we were walking, one of the places that we went past in Newport Beach was a bar, and there was a fight that was going on in the bar.

It spilled out the door like an old western or something, several guys who were beating up on one guy. He was bleeding from his forehead. It looked pretty bad. Well, we had a sense, "We've got to do something," so we went over to break it up, just three of us.

We were elders and a pastor at a church, didn't have much experience in breaking up fights spilling out of bars. I missed that class in seminary. I must have been gone the day they did the "how to break up a fight spilling out of a bar" class.

So we went over there, but I don't think we were very intimidating. We did the best we could, but I don't think it was like Arnold showing up or something.

But while we were there, these guys are looking at us and all of a sudden there was fear in their eyes, and they started to slink away. Then we looked behind us and saw that out of that bar had come the biggest guy I think I have ever seen.

He was literally, I think, about six foot-seven, weighed probably 300 pounds. It looked like two percent body fat to me. It looked like if Hercules ever married Xena, the Warrior Princess, and they had a child, you know, this is what it would look like.

We called him "Mongo," but not to his face. We made that one up later. He just stood there and flexed. All of a sudden, my attitude was transformed. I said to those guys, "You better not let us catch you here again, friends," bad news.

We were different people. I was different. Why? Because we had a great big Mongo standing right next to us. I was ready to confront with resolve and firmness. I was filled with boldness and confidence. I was released from anxiety and fear. I was ready to serve somebody that needed help. Why? Because I had a great big Mongo, and he was so big.

I was convinced I was not alone. I was convinced I was safe. I'll tell you something else, friends. If I were convinced that Mongo were with me 24 hours a day, I'd have a fundamentally different approach to life than I do. I'd have all kinds of courage and securities, but, of course, he's not. I can't count on Mongo. He just happened to come out the door.

How big is your God, friends? The Bible says he's one who is greater than Mongo and he's with you 24 hours a day, seven days a week -- when you wake, when you sleep, when you speak, when you listen, when you work, when you pray, when you worship.

Live with a small God and you live a small, sad, frightened life. Live with a big God, and you will live a life of risky faith and fearless obedience and awestruck worship and passionate evangelism.

It's against this backdrop that Paul writes about this colossal God, this cosmic vision of how vast Christ is. I just want to walk you through it real quickly, back to verse 15 now. We'll just look together at the supremacy of Christ, the sufficiency of Christ.

I hope this gets seared in us. We'll do that for a moment, and then I'll close this message by talking about some areas in your life that I think will be transformed if you go from here with a big God. How big is your God?

First of all, Paul says: "He is the image of the invisible God." This is a remarkable statement to make about someone who walked in a human fleshly body on earth. Paul says, "When you look at Jesus, you see God."

Now, the word that he uses there for "image" is the Greek work "eikon." We get our word "icon" from this word. Among other things, the Greeks used it for a portrait of somebody.

They obviously didn't have photograph snapshots in those days, so if you wanted somebody else to know what your grandkids looked like, you had to have portraits painted, and then you could show them. That was an icon. Well, Paul uses that word for Jesus. He says, "He is like the portrait of God."

A little kid is drawing a picture one day and his mom says, "What are you drawing?" The little kid says, "I'm drawing a picture of God." She said, "Nobody knows what God looks like." The kid says, "Well, they will when I get finished."

How do we know what God looks like? That's been the great question of humankind since the very beginning. What's his character? What's his heart? What would it be like with me? The problem, of course, is nobody really knew what God would look like. And Jesus says, "They will when I get finished."

Paul is adamant about this. Look at 1:19, "For in him" -- that is, in Jesus -- "all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell." How much of the fullness of God? All of it. You don't miss anything when you see Jesus, Paul says.

It comes back to the same thing in 2:9, "For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily," or physically or fleshly. How much of the fullness of deity? The whole fullness of deity. Again, you see that emphasis in there because the Colossians didn't think of God being able to inhabit matter, a human fleshly body.

Paul says all of God right there in a physical body. This means you can be absolutely confident of God's loving heart. This means I don't have to be afraid of God. If I wonder, what does God think of little children, just look at Jesus saying, "Let them come to me."

If I wonder, what does God really think of sinners like me, listen to Jesus say, "For I have come to seek and to save that which is lost."

If I wonder, how does God really feel about suffering that tears me up, look at Jesus weeping by the tomb of Lazarus.

I don't have to wonder if he'll still forgive me when I sin. I don't have to avoid him when I feel inadequate. I can run into his arms any time, night or day. No more being afraid of God.

How big is Jesus? He is the image of the invisible God, the God that no one had ever seen before. You look at Jesus, you have seen God.

You want to be an expert on God? You want to be a friend of him and fall in love with him? Just immerse yourself in the life of Jesus, friends. How big is Jesus? He's the image of the invisible God.

Then Paul goes right on, and this has to do with creation, the agent of creation. He's the image of the invisible God. Then Paul says, "The firstborn of all creation."

Now, when he says firstborn, he doesn't mean that Jesus was created himself. The word that he uses is "prototikus." We get our word "prototype" from the beginning of that word. It was the title of preeminence. As the firstborn, Jesus was not a part of creation. He is the Lord of creation, the one that stands preeminently over it.

Verse 16: "For in him all things" -- notice how often Paul uses that little word "all" -- "all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers -- all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things."

He is the agent of creation, and I have to think about that a bit. Turn back in your Bibles to Isaiah 40 if you would. Isaiah gives some pictures that help us get a sense of the vastness of God who created all that is.

Isaiah 40:10, "See, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him."

Then in verse 12 he starts this wonderful kind of riff on creation and God's majesty in it: "God," he says, "who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand."

Think about that for a moment. God just takes a little water in his hand and pours it out. There's the Pacific Ocean. A little water in his hand and pours it out. There's the Atlantic. A couple of drops left over, he just shakes them off. There's the Great Lakes.

See, that's what God is like, Isaiah says. Look at this -- this is amazing -- he has "measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with the breadth of his hand." God says to himself, how big shall I make the whole universe?

Take a look at your hand for a second. Just take a look at it and estimate how big it is. I know exactly how big mine is. When I grew up I remember reading that basketball players could palm a basketball if their hand was nine inches wide. I wanted that so bad. I made it to eight and a half inches and then I stopped. That's how big my hand is.

God says, "How big shall I make the universe? About that big." You think of the size of the universe. You think about solar systems and billions and billions of stars and galaxies and supernovas and black holes -- about that big.

See, we tend to think of space as being this kind of huge, cold, dark, empty cavern and God as being real big, but still dwarfed by the universe. Isaiah says God measured the whole thing with the breadth of his hand.

See, you need to picture the whole universe as just kind of fitting in God's hand like that. Now, of course, God doesn't have a body. God is spirit, but how do you measure what is finite compared to what is infinite? The universe is finite; God is infinite. He holds the whole thing like this.

Look at Isaiah 40:25, "'To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal?' says the Holy One. 'Lift up your eyes on high and see,'" he says, "'See the stars, who created these? He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name.'" God brings out the stars, numbers them, and calls them all by name.

How many stars are there in the universe? I don't know, but a lot, an awful lot. He knows them all by name. My Mom couldn’t keep three boys names straight.  She’d call for one of them, "Jerry, Ron, Mike whatever your name is, get over here."

God makes billions and billions of stars, and he's on a first-name basis with every one. God never has to look at a star and say, "Wait a minute, don't tell me. I'll come up with it." He knows them all.

He's the sovereign Lord of the creative order, and this means I don't have to be afraid of anything in the created order. I don't have to be afraid of disease or sickness or anything that might affect my body.

I don't have to worry about what I will eat or drink or my financial well-being or my financial status. Jesus talked about that. He said, "My advice to you is I wouldn't worry about what you're going to eat or drink, what you're going to wear. God cares for the birds, cares for the flowers. He'll take care of you. Don't worry about your life. Don't worry about tomorrow." How big is that?

Back to Colossians, now, Colossians 1. Jesus is the image of God, big enough to let us know everything we need to know about God. He is the agent of creation. We don't have to worry about anything in the created order. That takes in a lot of territory. He's also the Lord over every power.

Paul says again, verse 16: the Lord is over "things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers." Now, Paul here is not giving a detailed list. He's not spelling out all of supernatural reality.

The deal is, the Colossians were very in to speculating about spiritual beings, as people often are in our day. They were really into angels and the worship of angels, and they were kind of obsessed with the spirit world.

Paul here is simply saying, every human power, every government, every corporation, your boss, and every supernatural force, whatever they may be, every angelic being, every fallen angel, every one of them is just child's play in the hands of Jesus, all created by him.

Thrones, powers, rulers, principalities -- Jesus is big enough to easily overpower any force that might hinder me from following him. They're all under his lordship. They may not know it yet. He is Lord over all governments and over all networks and over every authority, every addiction, every supernatural being. I don't have to live in fear of any of it.

How big is Jesus? He is the sustainer of all things. Verse 17: "He himself is before all things" -- again, he is preeminent, and this is an amazing statement -- "and in him all things hold together."

Now, Paul here uses the perfect tense which indicates continuous action in Greek. In Jesus all things are continually being held together. In other words, he didn't just create us and leave us on our own. He is sustaining us right now. He is the one right now that causes the sun to keep shining. He is the one right now that causes gravity to allow us all to be in our places.

Did you ever hear anybody say, "I don't think I can hold it all together"? Well, you don't have to. That's his job. Jesus is doing that.

Just a word from Jesus, just his thought, and all things hold together. If he did not do that for a moment, it would be snuffed out like candles. Every moment that you and I live it is the result of the sustaining grace of Jesus. That's how big he is.

How big is Jesus? Big enough to conquer death. Look on, verse 18: "He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.

"For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things" -- and notice this -- "whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross."

God reconciled all things to himself through Jesus, through the blood of the cross, whether on earth -- that includes, of course, you and I, human beings. We're on earth, but God was not just reconciling what's on earth. I don't understand -- I don't think anybody fully understands -- everything in this phrase, but it would blow your mind. God in the cross was also reconciling things in heaven.

In other words, somehow at the Fall, the whole universe was affected. Paul says in Romans that creation was subjected to frustration. Creation was off somehow. And God, in Christ, in the cross was reconciling things on earth and things in heaven. There's cosmic significance to what happened on the cross.

The universe held its breath when Jesus was up there and because of what he did, because of his victory on the cross, the universe has been set right and one day we will fully experience that. There was cosmic redemption that happened on the cross.

Paul says that Jesus is now the firstborn among the dead -- "the beginning and the firstborn among the dead," he says in verse 18.

Now, these are unusual words to use with reference to death. In this world, death is about destruction. It's about the negation of birth. We don't have firstborn among the dead. When you're dead, you're dead.

A friend of mind by the name of John is a pastor. He used to be in Minnesota. He would often travel with a guy who owned a funeral company, and they would do funerals in small towns. The other guy would drive the hearse and John would do the ceremony at the funerals.

One day they had done that and they were coming back, and John was real tired. So he decided he was going to get some rest and he laid down in the back of the hearse, which, of course, was empty since they'd finished at the funeral. He took a nap. It's kind of a creepy place to take a nap, but that's where he did it.

While he was sleeping, his friend who was driving the hearse pulled into a gas station to get some gas. He goes inside the little mini-mart place, and a gas station attendant is pumping gas into the back of the hearse.

It's a true story. My friend, John, woke up at this moment and opened his eyes, stretched his arms, sees the attendant and starts pecking on the window, knocking on the window. He says he never saw anybody run so fast his whole life as that guy.

Why? Because in this world when you're dead, you're dead. It's a one-for-one deal. If you're dead, you stay dead. There's no firstborn among the dead -- just dead.

"But now," Paul says, and he's echoing the beginning of his hymn. This is kind of the second verse. The first section is Jesus and creation. The second verse is Jesus and recreation, the head of his body, the church.

The church is now what he's up to. Initially, he was doing creation. Now he is redeeming creation. He's doing that through his church. He has become as once he was, the firstborn of all creation -- same word, prototikus.

Now he's the firstborn of the dead. Through his death on the cross the agent of reconciliation is beginning a new race of human beings, a new humanity, and he's the prototype of life after death.

We're all going to follow him in this. One day, as sure as you and I are sitting here right now, you're going to open your eyes and knock on the window and the dead in Christ are going to rise. That's how big Jesus is. He's the image of God, the agent of creation, the Lord of all, the sustainer of life, the conqueror of death. He is so big.

But the question is, will you live with this big God? Will you be a big God person? The deal here is -- and this is a little scary -- if I'm going to be a big God person, if I'm going to live with a big God, then the first step is that I will have to act in trust. I will have to live as if I believe there is a big God right next to me.

Moses was up against Pharaoh, who seemed like the highest throne, power, authority, ruler in the world at that time. God says, "I'll deliver you, Moses. Take your people through the Red Sea. You'll have to put a foot in the water first. When you do that, I'll divide it. I'll march you through. I'll save you. You are safe in my hand the whole time because the whole universe is like this to me. You're safe in my hand, but you're going to have to take a step of faith."

Now, this is just a general principle. The way that we access the power of this great God is by faith, by acting in trust. You must act like you believe you have a big God with you, and then you'll discover you do have a big God with you.

So the question is, will you say when you wake up tomorrow morning, "I'm going to stop living with a shrunken God; I'm going to live like I have a great big God by my side"?

I want to suggest three areas in your life that I'd like to invite you to do that in. So if you're taking notes this morning, there's one, maybe two, maybe all three of these areas where you say, "Okay God, I'm going to live with a big God tomorrow. I'm tired of living with a little God. I'm tired of living in fear. I'm tired of leading a small life."

I'll give you three areas. The first one I'm going to invite you to live with a big God in is your relational life. Think about it.

Some of you have a person in your life that you're estranged from, and you're angry. There's some bitterness in your heart towards this person. You know that you need to forgive this person and seek reconciliation, and you've been getting smaller because of that bitterness. But you find yourself saying when you're right up against it, "I don't have it in me to be reconciled, to forgive that person."

Well, of course you don't have it in you. But you've got to create a big God right beside you. Your job is just to take one step toward forgiving. Make a call, approach that person. God will give you power to forgive, but you've got to take the first step.

Some of you have a person in your life that you need to love, that God's calling you to love, but you find yourself emotionally empty towards that person, with no warmth and maybe some coldness or hostility towards that one person.

You say, "I don't have it in me to love that person." Well, of course you don't, but you have a great, great big God, so take a step towards servanthood. What you need to do to love somebody is do one act of servanthood. Wash the dishes. Maybe it's somebody in your house. Make a bed. Mow a lawn if it's a neighbor.

Maybe you need to grow in compassion towards people from a different culture, of different ethnicity. Go on an urban plunge. Take a trip, just one, into the inner city. God will give you the power to love.

Maybe you have somebody and you need to speak the truth to them. Maybe they have hurt you and you need to confront them, but you've been not doing it because of fear, timidity, or for whatever reason. You say, "I don't have it in me to confront that person." Well, of course you don't, but you've got a great big God.

Maybe you've deceived someone. You need to confess, and you're frightened to do that. Well, you say the first sentence and God will give you the power to speak truth.

Live tomorrow with a big God in your relational life and, man, it will change your world. That's your relational life.

The second area is in ministry. I want to invite you to live with a big God in your service to the body of Christ, and I'll tell you one of the most striking times of this for me.

A number of years ago now I was invited to go to Ethiopia and I went. This was at a time when Ethiopia was still under Marxist rule. That's no longer true now. As with many countries, that day is gone.

Back in the days when I went there about nine years ago or so, it was under Marxism, and so Christianity was essentially forbidden. I was invited and got permission to go to speak at a conference with about a hundred leaders of churches, most of whom met in underground settings.

They asked me not only to come, but they asked me and one other guy that was also going because they had hardly any resources at all. I mean, the stuff that we have -- tapes and Christian radio and libraries and all this kind of stuff -- they didn't have. They asked if we would bring NIV study Bibles. They wanted 50 great big -- they had them all picked out -- study Bibles.

But, of course, this is not strictly legal. So they were asking, "Would you smuggle them in?" Now, my first response, frankly, was I was not nuts about this idea. I've not smuggled stuff before. I missed smuggling class in seminary, too. I missed all the good classes.

I wasn't real sure what the consequences would be if it went south. I had to ask the question, "Do I trust God in this?" I was pretty clear as I prayed about it. What would God want? I mean, this kind of stuff went on back in the days of the early church.

So the other guy and I decided we were going to do it, and the people in the church where I served contributed the Bibles. They bought them and signed them, wrote messages to the church leaders in Ethiopia and so on.

As I was getting ready to leave my church to go to the airport, one of the women in the church -- we had kind of a ceremony and we had all these Bibles signed and stuff -- one of the women came up and said, "I went out and got an extra one just in case," and handed it to me. So we actually went with 51.

I had half of them in one suitcase, the other guy had half of them in another suitcase. It was a long plane flight to Ethiopia. It stopped once, and guys in uniforms got on and they're checking the plane.

I got a little paranoid because I've never done something like this before. It felt like a James Bond kind of thing to do, and I just didn't have experience with that. I had a letter in my briefcase explaining the Bibles, and I didn't know, should I throw it away in the washroom? What if they go through the trash in the washrooms? I didn't know if they did that. Should I eat the letter? I didn't know.

So I was a little paranoid. We land and our suitcases are in customs. One of them makes it through and the other one didn't. They stopped it, they opened it, they saw what was inside. They let us go, but they kept the suitcase. Then they called about a day later and said, "We need to talk with you."

We knew this was trouble, so the guy that was kind of the head of the little compound where I was, the little community, went to the airport. The best that we were hoping for was that maybe the guy would ask for some kind of bribe and still let them through. Maybe he wouldn't; maybe they'd be lost and it would be worse.

So our head guy goes to the airport and meets with this customs official who closes the door. He brings him into a room and closes the door. Here it comes. This is what the guy said. "You're trying to get Bibles into my country. They are illegal. No one can have them. But I will let you take this suitcase of Bibles on one condition. You must give one of them for me to keep myself."

When I heard that story, the immediate thing I thought of was, as I was getting ready to leave, I had the 50 Bibles that were asked for and somebody handed me one more. Everybody that was in Ethiopia that had wanted one got one, and the extra one ended up in the hands of a Marxist customs official at the Ethiopian airport.

Now, the Bible says Jesus is Lord over every power and authority, every throne, every ruler. It was kind of a funny thing in Ethiopia when I was there. They had billboards all over the place with pictures of three guys on them -- Karl Marx and Lenin and Colonel Mengistu, who was the head of Ethiopia back then.

The people were not crazy about these three characters. They used to call the billboards, that they were of the Three Stooges. Here's the deal: The message of these billboards was, "God is dead, Christianity is dead, and this reign is going to endure forever."

Well, here's the deal today, friends: Marx is out of power and Lenin is out of power and Mengistu is out of power, and God is doing very well. He is doing very well. But see, I wouldn't have known if I hadn't said, "Yes, I think God is a big God."

Now, most often in my life, not something dramatic like that, but all the time in ministry there are moments where I have to say, "Okay, am I going to trust God? Am I going to step forward in ministry or not?"

A lot of you, you're considering a new area of service, maybe to start leading a small group. You're kind of nervous about that. Or maybe it's to work with kids in Children’s Church, or FW FRIENDS…..or the Sound Ministry, or Ushering, you've never done anything like that before. You're thinking, "Ethiopia and Marxist, sure, that's one thing. But three-year-olds, I don't know about me." Just one step, friends. Take one step. God is a big God.

Some of you have never in your life given the way that you've wanted to. Maybe you've never even tithed or maybe you're called to way beyond that, to give sacrificially, but you never have. The truth is, it's kind of a scary deal. Take one step. Give the way you sense God calling you to give one time and see if he doesn't prove faithful. Give like you had a big God.

Be a big God person in your relational life, be a big God person in your ministry. Serve this body like you've got a great big God beside you with big dreams and big plans. I mean, not necessarily dramatic ones or real visible ones, but things that count for the kingdom.

Then the final area, the third area, make God real big in your evangelistic life. Paul says that God has reconciled all things, making peace through the blood of the cross. He says to those at Colosse, "You were once strange and hostile and doing evil deeds. He has now reconciled you in his fleshly body," again, this emphasis on Christ being here in the flesh, "through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him."

Paul says, "I've become a servant of that gospel," and, of course, the Colossians have, too, and so have you and so have I. So do you live with a big God as an evangelist in your evangelistic life?

Two days ago, Tuesday, I was talking with a woman, an unchurched person that I've been getting to know for some time, and she has been involved in a relational disaster. She was involved for a long time with a guy who could be a poster boy for "Men Behaving Badly."

She just wouldn't get out of that relationship and finally did, but not until she was in another relationship already before she ended the first one. This guy was like "Men Behaving Badly: The Sequel."

When I was talking to her and she was talking about this stuff, I thought, "She needs wisdom. This is just not wise what she's doing with her life. Where could she get some wisdom? Where would be a good resource for that?"

You know, friends, we have this tool here. I hope you were here this last weekend. I think that this series that's going on on the weekends is, you know, for people like the life of this friend of mine that is just heading towards disaster. You know, wisdom is just what they scream out for by the buckets.

So I just said, "You know, I bet you could use wisdom. This is amazing. At my church we're doing this series on wisdom. God wants to make wisdom available to people. There's a whole book in the Bible just devoted to making people wise in amazingly practical areas of life like relationships and so on, so I'd love for you to come." I'm just praying she will.

I think the evangelistic potential of this series coming up is huge, but it depends on all of us living with a big God in our relational lives. Sometime, maybe this week, you'll sense a nudge from the Spirit. Just take a step in evangelism.

At the same time, there will be another voice that says, "You know, if I do that, this person might reject me or might not be interested. Maybe I won't find the words. Maybe it will be awkward." Here's the question: How fearless would you be if Mongo were right beside you?

Well, one who is greater than Mongo, friends, is right beside you. So just take one step. Make an invitation. Ask one question about somebody's spiritual life. What do they think about God? You'll find that there's a great big God next to you.

This great big God wants to reconcile way more than we even understand. Reconcile "all things," the Bible says, "on earth and in heaven." He's done the work through the cross, but now we get to be partners in this.

Live with a great big God in your relational life. Live with a great big God in ministry, in your service to the body. Live with a great big God as proclaimers of the gospel.

What we're going to do now is turn our attention again to worship. I just want to say a few words to remind you of how big Jesus is to kind of set up our worship time. Then we'll have a couple of minutes to prepare and then we'll worship.

How big is Jesus? So big that he can hold the entire universe in the palm of his hand. So big he created everything by a word from his mouth -- just a word and it all came into being, and he sustains it all without any strain or effort at all.

So big that he was able to place all the fullness of God in a baby born to poverty-stricken parents and laid in a manager.

How big is Jesus? So big that in a word from him storms cease and winds died and fish were multiplied and the lame leaped for joy and the blind opened their eyes and saw, and demons and death ran for their lives.

So big that when Jesus went to the cross, the entire universe held its breath and time stopped and history was suspended, and he brought about the reconciliation of the entire created order through the shedding of his blood.

So big that when he went to his tomb the grave could not hold him, and after three days he started pecking at the window, and the guards started running and the priests started running and the evil one has been running ever since for 2,000 years.

So big that he has numbered every hair you've ever grown and every tear you've ever cried and every breath you've ever inhaled and every word you've every spoken and every hope you've ever cherished.

So big that he is surrounding your chair right now. He'll surround your car on the way home, your bed when you sleep tonight, your day when you wake up tomorrow.

So big that he will be a shield around you from this moment until the day comes when he presents you holy in his sight without blemish and free from accusation to live forever in the arms of his father.

He is so big. Now we're going to worship him. So would you just join me in a word of prayer, and then we're going to magnify this guy.