Christ Or Chaos?
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
What is our purpose as people? How did life begin to exist? What happens after we die? How did humans get to be here? These are some of the fundamental questions that people ask in order to formulate their own worldview. Everyone has a worldview, regardless of if they even know what that word means. A worldview is a collection of attitudes and thoughts about the world around us which impacts our thoughts and actions. Consider how some people in our world answer these questions - how did life begin to exist? Some would say that there was nothing, and then there was something (Big Bang) and then now we have everything! Others would say that life has simply always existed. In this framework, then how did humans arrive on the scene? Most of these individuals would say that it’s through macro evolution over billions of years. In this worldview, what is the purpose for humans? Likely to enjoy life, make things better for other species, and find pleasure… because after we die, according to this worldview, that’s all there is.
Do you see the despair that this worldview leads to? Why are we here? We’re cosmic accidents. Where are we going? Nowhere. How’d we get here? Billions of years of chance. What should we do? Whatever feels right. Do you see how this leads to chaos? We look around our world and see many worldviews being taught and believed in and, at the root of many of them, is the deification of self - expressing self as creator, savior, and god.
Contrast this worldview with the Biblical worldview: How did life exist? In the beginning, God created all things. How did humans arrive? Because God intricately made us and spoke the breath of life into us. What is our purpose? To know God and to enjoy Him forever. What happens after we die? As believers, we have the hope that we’ll be with our Creator forever. Do you see how this worldview gives purpose to us? How it provides clarity amidst the present chaos that we find ourselves in regularly?
This morning as we continue our study through Colossians, we come to one of the richest passages in the entire Bible, Colossians 1:15-23, and we’re going to be reminded of what our God has done in creating, saving, and sustaining each one of us and what our responsibility is today, tomorrow, and in the years to come. There are 2 options in our world today: It’s either Christ or it’s all Chaos - let’s read from God’s Word and see the beauty of what our God has done!
Main Idea: Christ is above all, he has done it all, and now we have it all—so don’t move at all!
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
16 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.
17 He is before all things, and by him all things hold together.
18 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.
19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,
20 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.
21 Once you were alienated and hostile in your minds as expressed in your evil actions.
22 But now he has reconciled you by his physical body through his death, to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before him—
23 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.
Whenever we say that it’s all about Jesus, we actually mean it because of passages like this! He is before all things, He holds all things, He creates and He saves, He provides and He gives us peace with God. As CS Lewis once said, Jesus is either Lord of All or He’s not Lord at all - who is Jesus to you? Let’s pray
Christ Creates All Things (15-16)
Christ Creates All Things (15-16)
This passage of Scripture is believed to be a hymn of the early church that they would have sang together to remember both who Christ is and what Christ has done. Some of our songs this morning fall into this same category - specifically This I Believe. This is a hymn that states Biblical truths about who Christ is and what Christ has done and it’s based on the Apostle’s Creed. Churches forfeit so much by neglecting to sing rich hymns of the faith, and it’s a blessing to see more modern hymns being composed the remind us of God’s work. Colossians 1:15-20 is what many call a Christological hymn, a hymn about Christ. How does this hymn start? With WHO He is - the image of the invisible God and the firstborn over all creation.
9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been among you all this time and you do not know me, Philip? The one who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
Now, back in Genesis 1 we know that God made man in His image… so what is the big deal with Jesus being the image of the invisible God, aren’t we? Sadly, we live in a Genesis 3 world… yes, we are made in God’s image still, but sin distorts that image. It’s like if you look at yourself through a big piece of glass - in Genesis 1, that was the image, it was clear… but sin is like a rock that is thrown at that glass and shatters it into a thousand pieces. Do parts of us still reflect that image? Yes! But there are also things that we do as humans that do not reflect the image of God and that is the result of sin. So, how does is Jesus the image of the invisible God? Because Jesus never once sinned. Look at this incredible verse in Hebrews 1:3
3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
Hebrews 1 is an incredible chapter and here we see here that Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God - this is why He can say that if you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father. He is God in human flesh! Next the hymn says that Jesus is the firstborn over all creation, and this is where people have gotten Jesus wrong more times than not. Whenever you hear the word firstborn, what do you generally think of? You think of your oldest child. For Lindsey and I, we would say that Gabriel is our firstborn. What is potentially problematic with this statement of Jesus if we don’t understand it correctly? Many people have said that just as God created all of us, God also created Jesus, and Jesus is the firstborn - or the first created being. This is what the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe concerning Jesus, that He is not fully God but a human being. Jehovah’s Witnesses aren’t the first people to believe incorrectly here, in the 300s AD there was a man named Arius who taught vocally that Jesus Christ was a created being, and not fully God. In fact, this is what he wrote, “There was when He was not.” Church, any person who says that Jesus was not fully God, or that He stopped being fully God, or as many in the NAR circles, such as Bill Johnson, are saying nowadays that Jesus did His miracles as a man in right relation to God and not as God, fundamentally misunderstand passages like Colossians 1:15-23 which are explicitly telling us that Jesus was, is, and always will be God. This is firstborn in terms of supremacy, not chronology. He is not a part of creation, because verse 16 tells us that He Himself created all things!
Whenever I thought of creation as a child, I usually thought about God the Father, not Jesus Christ - anyone else? Go back with me to Hebrews 1:1-2
1 Long ago God spoke to our ancestors by the prophets at different times and in different ways.
2 In these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son. God has appointed him heir of all things and made the universe through him.
So who created the Universe? John 1:3
3 All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created.
Jesus Christ! This includes the microscopic and the cosmic. Physical and spiritual. Abraham Kuyper shared it like this nearly a century ago, “There is not one square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: MINE!” He made it all! Things on the earth and the heavens above. Things we can see and things we can’t see. All things were created through Him, and FOR Him. Those last two words are interesting words - yes, we know that Christ made all things… but He made them for Himself. Do you see how this shapes how we view the purpose of this planet? Do you see how this shapes the way that we see the purpose for our own lives? What is our purpose? We exist for the glory of God. What about the rivers and hills and sunsets and stars? The same - they exist for the glory of God
1 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the expanse proclaims the work of his hands.
Have you ever looked up into the night sky and seen seemingly hundreds of thousands of stars? It is estimated that in the observable universe, there are 200 billion, trillion stars. Our galaxy alone contains over 100 billion stars! Sometimes we think that stars are these tiny objects, but our sun is a star and it’s considered an average sized star. Do you know how many earths you could fit in the sun? 1.3 million. If the earth were the size of this golf ball, that would mean that you could fill up an entire school bus with golf balls. But remember, our sun is an average sized star. There are bigger stars out there. Canis Majoris - or known as the Big Dog - is a star that left me speechless. Canis Majoris is so big that you could fit 460 billion earths inside the planet! If the earth were a golf ball, and you stacked 460 billion golf balls on top of each other, they would reach over 12 million miles in length, which is half the distance from Earth to Venus! But Canis Majoris isn’t the biggest star there is… UY Scuti - are you ready? 5 billion times the size of our sun… and about 7 quadrillion times bigger than the earth. If the earth were a golf ball, UY Scuti would be Mt. Everest. You could cover the state of Texas 2 feet deep in golf balls.
This is the picture that stopped me in my tracks when I saw it when I was a teenager. It’s hard to even see what this picture is… Voyager 1 was launched in 1977 and in 1990 the camera turned back towards the earth and snapped a picture. Caught in this one ray of light is what is called the Pale Blue Dot - also known as Earth.
Do you feel a little smaller? We are dust. Our life is a vapor - here one minute, gone the next. The more we look up and the more we dive into God’s Word, we discover that we are cosmically insignificant, yet we are fearfully and wonderfully made by the Creator of the Cosmos!
This same star breathing God who spoke the galaxy into existence, created you. Designed you. Knows you. He knows the number of hairs on your head. The number of heart beats you’ve had, and the number you have left. Friends, Jesus Created All Things!
36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.
Christ Sustains All Things (17-18a)
Christ Sustains All Things (17-18a)
So often in life we try to sustain things. Maybe it’s a relationship that we try to put effort into so that it remains. Maybe it’s an Air Conditioning unit at a church that we try to patch and duct tape and fix up so that it sustains into another year. Maybe it’s a job that you really work hard for in order to keep your supervisor impressed so that you can get a promotion or bonus. We know what it’s like to work hard and to try and get something to last in life… and this leads to fatigue and stress because there are things out of our control. Have you come to realize that in your life? There are things above your pay grade that are simply out of your control. We fight for control in seemingly all aspects of our life - but it just takes one accident, one storm, one sickness, one event to remind us just how much is out of our control. As much as we try, we just can’t hold all things together! As we think about this truth, some fall into despair as they believe that if they aren’t in control, then it must be chaos that is in control. Life is due to luck, chance, or good ole chaos… In fact this is what John Mark Comer, a very popular Bible teacher recently said… there are things outside of God’s will that happen due to chaos.
What does the Bible say about this? Look at Colossians 1:17 - by Him, all things hold together. Gravity might seem to hold us together as it keeps us nice and secured on this planet instead of floating into space… but the reason why gravity holds us on the planet is because gravity depends on Jesus Christ to hold it together. God created a world with rules and order, and God is the One who sustains this world day by day, moment by moment. How does He do this?
3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
Not only did Jesus make all things, but He presently sustains all things because He is seated in glory, ruling and reigning as King today. Think of the things that people run to in order to sustain them in life - knowledge, friends, family members, activities, sports, how about the heavy hitters… what helps sustain you whenever you didn’t sleep very good the night before? Caffeine! What helps sustain us whenever our stomach is growling? Food. What helps to sustain whenever we’re in need? Money and possessions. People on our planet, and we in this room, put so much stock in these things to sustain - and some of them aren’t bad things! But it is JESUS Christ who alone holds all things together. How are we here this morning? Yes, you set your alarm. Yes, you got dressed. Yes, you drove in your car. But you are here because the King of the Universe sustained you through the night, put breath in your lungs this morning, and kept you safe as you drove to church this morning. He sustains and holds us together!
It’s been said that God is always doing 10,000 things in our lives and we might be aware of 3 of them at any one time. Think of the story of Job - a man who had everything and in the blink of an eye, he lost his livestock, servants, and children. What happens throughout Job? Job believes that God has fallen asleep at the wheel and that what is happening to him is undeserved - what does God say in response at the end of the book?
4 Where were you when I established the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.
19 Where is the road to the home of light? Do you know where darkness lives,
32 Can you bring out the constellations in their season and lead the Bear and her cubs?
2 Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let him who argues with God give an answer.
God pulls back the veil just an inch and shows Job that He is doing 10,000 things in HIS life that he has no clue of, and look at Job’s response
2 I know that you can do anything and no plan of yours can be thwarted.
3 You asked, “Who is this who conceals my counsel with ignorance?” Surely I spoke about things I did not understand, things too wondrous for me to know.
4 You said, “Listen now, and I will speak. When I question you, you will inform me.”
5 I had heard reports about you, but now my eyes have seen you.
Our God sustains all things… including our lives. Imagine how water sustains a hiker on an intense journey. That water literally provides life on a grueling day and without it, the person would be in grave danger. Our God sustains us, not only on the exhausting days, but the easy days too. This is a present tense verb in Colossians 1:17, meaning that without the continuous holding together of all things by Jesus, everything would disintegrate! Not only does Jesus hold our lives and the universe together, verse 18 tells us that He also upholds the Church. Jesus is the head of the body - Christ is both the Power and Provider of the Church! Can any person survive without a head? We can’t. Likewise, a Christian cannot survive without belonging to a local church that submits to the headship of Jesus Christ. No lone-ranger Christians allowed in the New Testament as we all need Jesus and we all need to be united to the local body of Christ.
Think about the church - Paul is writing this to the Colossian Church. When Paul planted churches, he planted churches with elders - some don’t like that word, but it’s a Biblical word and it’s a Biblical practice throughout the New Testament. There are some churches today that have elders who are the rulers of the church. That’s not Biblical. Christ is the head. Christ rules the church. Christ-Centered Churches have pastors or elders who lead the church and the congregation is actively involved and approves things within the church. But it is Christ who comes first in the church, it is Christ who sets the rules for the church, the question should not be “Is it Broken?” but “Is it Biblical?” It shouldn’t be “Is it convenient?” but “Is it Christlike?” Christ and His Word must be our standard!
Think about your life today - who is supreme? How can you know? Your social media page and your checking account. What do you post about? What do you spend money on? We talk about what matters to us and we spend money on what we support and things that matter to us. So, if you were to check your social media feed, what would you see? It’s an election year, so be careful! Really, what would you see? 50% political posts? More? Sports updates? Memes? Where is Jesus? So many will drop hundreds or thousands on Chiefs tickets without hesitation because it’s making memories with the fam… but how about spending the same amount going on a mission trip? That’s what other people do.
Does Christ come first? Is He supreme? He sustains us and He must have first place in our lives because it’s either Christ or Chaos!
Christ Reconciles All Things (18b-20)
Christ Reconciles All Things (18b-20)
We’ve all heard reconciliation stories where there were people who had a problem but somehow, someway that problem was addressed and the people were restored and reconciled to one another. In order to have reconciliation, you also have to have a problem that requires reconciliation to happen in the first place. We love reconciliation stories, but it would be so much cleaner if we just avoided the need for reconciliation in the first place! So many people operate in a worldview that says that they don’t need to be reconciled to God because, for many, there is no problem between them and God. This goes against the clear teaching of Scripture, though.
23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;
12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all people, because all sinned.
We look around our world of brokenness and death, and we see problems. We see sinfulness. We see death. Where is the hope in this fallen world? Colossians 1:18-20 gives us hope through the reconciliation of Jesus Christ - the first born from the dead. Again, is this chronologically speaking? Is Jesus the first person to raise from the dead? No! We know that Lazarus was raised by Jesus from the dead… this again is in terms of rank. He is the most important person who was raised from the dead and we see this in 1 Corinthians 15:20
20 But as it is, Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
Without the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we would have no hope of resurrection today! Why does the resurrection matter? Because Jesus is the firstborn from the dead, we have this same resurrection hope as adoptive brothers and sisters through faith in Christ. We can think of explorers who went before us and mapped things out - they did it, and we can follow their lead. Jesus did this from death to life and calls on us to follow Him in all that we do!
Why is it a big deal for Jesus to be fully-God and fully-man? In order to reconcile us to God! This word, reconcile, only appears 3x in the New Testament and exclusively by Paul in Colossians and Ephesians (both letters that he wrote around the same timeframe) as God brings about this change in the life of His people. Paul never says that God is reconciled to humans because God didn’t move. God didn’t break that relationship. Instead the Bible tells us that God reconciled us to Himself. God doesn’t need to be reconciled to us - we need to be reconciled to Him. Do you see the beauty of our salvation story? God doesn’t need us. God didn’t move away from us. We all need God. We all have sinned against God. And what does God do? He sent His Son into this world in order to reconcile us to Him. How does this happen? Not through our good works or prayers or walking the aisle… but simply through God’s amazing grace! Jesus brings peace through His blood on the cross of calvary. The most cruel instrument that represented death and torture was subverted by Christ as He turned an object that achieved pain into an object that achieves peace.
Consider in Egypt how this happened. God told His people to put the blood of the lamb above their doorposts and in doing so, the angel of death would pass over their household. Blood worked as a substitute in the Old Testament. One death in place of another to bring about freedom from judgment. The angel didn’t check the inside of the house to see if the family was worthy, because they weren’t. The angel looked at the blood, and passed over. Friend, God operates the same today. Our reconciliation with the Father is not based on us being worthy of acceptance or approval… it’s based on the blood being found on the doorpost. There was nothing that we could do to earn our reconciliation and salvation! We were hopeless and sinful, but through the blood of Jesus we are hopeful and sinless. Not that we become perfect people on earth, but in the eyes of God, He sees the blood of His Son and that blood provides us with peace!
Our salvation hinges on Jesus being WHO He said He was - Fully-God and Fully-Man and doing WHAT the Bible says He did - dying in our place on the cross. Some call the cross Cosmic Child Abuse as they say that Jesus was brought to the cross unwillingly… We read that Christ submitted to the Father’s plan in the Garden of Gethsemane and willingly went to the Cross. Others look at Colossians 1:20 and believe that this means that everyone goes to heaven because He reconciled everything and everyone. In fact, the Pope just a few weeks ago said that all religions believe in the same God and every religion arrives at the same God. In other words, everyone is fine. Everyone is saved. I believe that there are 300 Bible scholars in this room. And I believe that you know the foolishness of this teaching, although it certainly sounds nice on social media and polls well with politics. If everyone is saved, there is no reason for Jesus to come and die for us on the cross. If someone can reject Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, reject the finished work He did in our place, and still come out fine, there is no reason for Him to have come in the first place. Not everyone is at peace with God… some are at war with Him.
1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus,
What does this mean? If you are not in Christ, there is condemnation
18 Anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God.
Friends, we need reconciliation. This is what Jesus has done on the cross! We must respond in faith today.
Has Christ Redeemed You? (21-23)
Has Christ Redeemed You? (21-23)
This song is all about Jesus - who He is as Creator, Sustainer, and Savior! But what to the best Christian hymns do? Many modern worship songs move us emotionally, but not spiritually. People crave a feeling - a vibe - a sensation… miss me with those descriptions of worship! What should happen whenever we sing a song about the glory and greatness of Jesus Christ? It should move us spiritually to rejoice not because of a fleeting feeling, but because of a forever fact. It should lead us to give thanks for WHO God is and WHAT He has done. It should lead us to examine our hearts and see if we truly have responded in faith to the Gospel, and if so, what we are presently doing as a redeemed member of God’s family! We see here our story, past, present, and future!
This is how Paul concludes this Christological Hymn - look in our text in verse 21, “Once YOU were alienated and hostile in your minds as expressed in your evil actions.” This isn’t just abstract theology! This is reality. Notice the shift in verse 21 with the word YOU. This is the application of the hymn. This sets the foundation for everything else that will follow in Colossians. Because Jesus is Supreme… and because you were once separated from Him… Serve Him well!
Notice the separation language - not just separated but alienated. Several years ago there was a story about 33 miners in Chile trapped inside a mine 2,300 feet below the surface for 69 days! Alienated from the outside world. Without hope. This is our condition before Christ - alienated. Stuck. Separated with no hope of being restored. Look at what Paul shares in Ephesians 2:12 of our past before Christ
12 At that time you were without Christ, excluded from the citizenship of Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world.
Alienated. Enemies of God. Walking in darkness. Separated from God.
Our Past is marked by Restriction - Just like the people of Jerusalem around the temple complex. Gentiles could come into the outer court. Jewish women could come into the “Beautiful Gate” and into the next court. Jewish men could come into what was called the Court of Israel. The Priests could come into the Court of Priests… but only 1x a year could the High Priest enter the Holy of Holies where the presence of God was. There was separation all across the place as people were excluded from the presence of God and His promises as well. This was also true for us before Christ.
So what changed? Verse 22 - Christ reconciled us through His work on the cross.
Our Present is marked by Reconciliation and as a result of this status through faith in Christ, we are presented before God as holy, faultless, and blameless… Remember, this is not through our own works, but through the finished work of Jesus Christ! This is a legal change that happens as God puts our sin upon His Son and the righteousness of Jesus is credited to our accounts.
What about our future? Verse 23 - We remain grounded and steadfast.
What is our hope to remain steadfast in the faith? I’m not sure about you, but left to myself I would have no hope or assurance here. There would be no eternal security! Yet, this is the theme of the New Testament that we have died to sin and been raised to walk in newness of life, that we are a new creation, that
20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.
As Baptists, we unashamedly believe in the doctrine of eternal security and it has nothing to do with us. My confidence in my salvation is not in my perfect track record, it’s placed in the fact that my Savior has a perfect track record and drops none of His blood-bought, born-again followers. In other words, as Sinclair Ferguson once shared, "My security as a Christian does not reside in the strength of my faith but in the indestructibility of my Savior." He is our foundation and whenever the wind increases and the waves roar, Christ is a firm foundation who is not moved. Whenever you’re in Christ, this is your hope as He will not drop you and He will not abandon you. Our responsibility is to stand on His Word.
The Gospel isn’t magic - it’s not as though you believe in Christ and turn from sin one day and suddenly become perfect and sinless the next as all your problems go away. Justification is instant, Sanctification is incremental. Dying to self, living for Christ. But if we are redeemed, we will grow. He holds us fast. He saves us. He sustains us. He redeems us.
People talk about “unfair” in a bad sense - can I share you some good news? Our salvation isn’t fair. Because it’s all about grace, it means that all are welcomed. It’s not due to our works, our skin color, our voting record, how respected or impressive we are, or the mistakes we have made… It’s all because of Jesus and the Grace of Jesus is radically unfair, and we praise God for that reality.
Our Future is marked by Redemption and it’s because of the finished work of Jesus.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Again, as CS Lewis once said, Christ is either Lord of all or He’s not Lord at all. Many people are content with Jesus being their mascot. Their helper. Their partner. But they draw the line with Jesus being their Lord. But if Jesus isn’t Lord of all, then He’s not Lord at all. He’s not interested in more half-hearted followers. He has millions of them, and needs none more. Church, there is hope whenever Jesus comes first… and when Jesus does come first, you can have certainty in a world dominated by chaos. How can we find this hope? We must look in 2 places:
Look Up - Christ or Chaos?
We look around our world and we see chaos and things that we simply don’t fully understand… where is the hope in such a world? Daniel 2:28 reminds us that there is a God in Heaven who reveals mysteries. Church, we look up at the night sky and see the stars like our sun and all the planets and asteroids and galaxies that God has made and we realize that in the grand scheme of the Universe, we’re really not that big at all. God Gets us Small So Christ Shines BIG! We like to think that we’re all that in a bag of potato chips - we have the big house, car, boat, farm, whatever it may be… Friends, look up at creation, we’re specks. We’re dust. We’re nothing more than a vapor. Christ, or Chaos? Accident or A part of God’s perfect plan? May we never not be amazed at the supremacy of Christ in Creation and marvel at how He continues to sustain the universe with His power day by day.
Jesus doesn’t just sustain the world, though, He also sustains His Church.
It grieves my heart to see friends and mentors fall in ministry. It shatters entire communities! But what does Colossians 1:17 remind us? God calls pastors and uses pastors to lead His churches, but it is Christ alone who sustains God’s Church. South Gate, because of Christ, we don’t have to fear a chaotic world where sin continues to ensnare people one by one.
There is hope in the Church today because of Christ. You’ll hear this again at Christmas time, but because of Jesus what is good can never be lost and what is bad can be changed and it’s all because of Jesus Christ. Without Christ, there would be no cosmos, church, or celebration… but because of Christ we have creation, the Church is growing, and we celebrate each day!
Finally, look in and choose Christ or Chaos.
We all face problems each day both external and internal. Even as believers, we face temptations! It doesn’t matter how old you are or how long you’ve been a Christian, there will always be temptations to give into our sinful, self-seeking desires! As we look inside our hearts, we must daily choose Christ. We must daily remember who Jesus is, what He endured to save our souls, what He is doing for us today, and as we remember, we resolve to live for Him. We choose to represent Christ in a world dominated by chaos. South Gate Baptist Church, Jesus Christ is above all, Jesus has done it all, we, as His people have it all, so we must not move at all. Jesus is supreme and He must be supreme in our lives individually and in the life of this Church. Jesus must be first in our worship, our work, and our witness! It’s all about Christ!