Christian Values - Being Christ Centred

What is Christ’s relationship to God?

The Supremacy of Christ: Our Joy in His Preeminence

Bible Passage: Colossians 1:9-20

Summary: In this passage, Paul presents the supremacy of Christ as central to the Christian faith, emphasizing His role as the Creator and Sustainer of all things, and the importance of being reconciled to God through Him.

Application: Understanding Christ's preeminence helps Christians navigate life's challenges, reminding them that Jesus is above all situations and that they can find peace and hope in Him amidst struggles and trials.

Teaching: This sermon can teach about the vastness of Christ's authority and His divine nature, encouraging believers to live under His lordship and to spread the message of reconciliation to others.

How this passage could point to Christ: In Scripture, Christ is depicted as the fulfillment of God's plan of redemption, the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation, emphasizing that He is central to human history and salvation.

Big Idea: Embracing the preeminence of Christ transforms our perspective on life, encouraging us to rely on His power and purpose to face our daily challenges with confidence and joy.

1. Image of the Invisible God

Colossians 1:15

Here’s the practical implication: you come to know God only through revelation - when things click into place —through Jesus Christ—and you cannot fully know God the Father apart from God the Son.1 When you see Jesus, you’ve seen God.5 This isn’t mystical language; it means Jesus’s character, compassion, justice, and love directly show us who God is. In Colossians specifically, Christ images God regarding creation and through His resurrection effects reconciliation with everything in the created order—mirroring the cosmological relationship God has with the entire universe.3

So when Paul writes that Christ is “the image of the invisible God,” he’s saying: Here is God made knowable. Here is the divine nature made visible. Here is how you encounter the God who cannot otherwise be seen.

Image denotes representation or likeness

When we encounter Christ, we encounter God’s self disclosure

Christ reveals who God is

Those who see Him see God

Those who know Him know God

Those who hear Him hear God

The divine character appears in human form

Makes God accessible to human perception

Exact representation of God’s being

Jesus is the definitive standard for understanding divinity and humanity

We work, serve, and behave as God would if he was physically present

2. Firstborn of all Creation

Colossians 1:15

The practical takeaway: when Paul calls Jesus “firstborn of all creation,” he’s not saying Jesus was created. Rather, the phrase highlights Jesus’ agency in creating all things and his sovereignty over them3. It’s a declaration of His authority and rightful rule—answering the question of who gets to be in charge rather than when did this happen. This reframes the entire passage from a chronological puzzle into a statement about Christ’s supreme position and authority over everything that exists.

Refers to a position of authority

It conveys primacy, prominence and prestige over creation

Means He is head and Lord of God’s creation

Affirms His eternal existence

Christ is head of the church and received the world as His inheritance

Secures future resurrection and eternal life of God’s other sons and daughters

3. All things were created by Him

Colossians 1:16

The practical takeaway reframes your entire existence: you’re not a cosmic accident or a byproduct of impersonal forces. Instead, you’re part of a creation intentionally designed by Christ, sustained by Christ, and oriented toward Christ’s glory. Your life has meaning because it exists within His purpose—not as servitude, but as participation in something far greater than yourself.

Powerfully affirms Christ’s deity

He is the instrumental cause (agent through human creation occurred) and final cause (purpose for which creation exists)

At the same time He sustains all things

Universal authority over all creation, including the angelic hierarchy

4. All things were created through him

Colossians 1:16

The practical takeaway: recognizing Christ as the creative agent “through” whom all things exist invites you to see His fingerprints everywhere and to trust that He’s actively working toward redemption—not just of souls, but of the entire created order, including your circumstances and future.

5. All things were created for him

Colossians 1:16

The takeaway becomes intensely practical: since all things were created for Christ, you evaluate every opportunity, relationship, and commitment by asking whether it draws you closer to Him or away. This single criterion cuts through confusion and competing demands. Your life gains coherence not through achieving more but through aligning everything with the one for whom all things exist.

Nothing occurs independently of Christ, nothing escapes His involvement or exists apart from HIm

6. Christ was Before all things

Colossians 1:17

The takeaway: Christ’s existence before all things means you’re never outside His knowledge, care, or control. Your past doesn’t define you because Christ transcends it. Your future isn’t uncertain because Christ already exists there. This transforms anxiety into confidence—not because circumstances improve, but because Christ provides the lens through which both truth and its cheap imitations come into focus.1

Denotes His preexistence

Supreme authority above all creation

Foundational principle underlying reality

There was never a time when Christ did not exist

7. In Him, all things hold together

Colossians 1:17

The practical implication becomes clear through an analogy: Jesus functions as the key piece in creation’s puzzle, at the heart of all things, sustaining them by His power1. Without Jesus at the center of creation, the forces restraining chaos would vanish1. This explains why the planet maintains incredibly fine balance—exactly the right conditions for life, with oxygen and carbon dioxide cycles perfectly calibrated, water cycles and temperature precisely calibrated—and despite major climatic changes throughout earth’s history, this fragile balance persists1.

The personal takeaway: When everything in your life feels like it’s falling apart, your Savior is holding you together2. Since before creation’s dawn, He has held the universe together; before your birth, He has done the same for you—He is holding you together2.

Christ actively maintains and sustains creation

The universe’s permanence depends fundamentally on Christ rather than on physical forces - it is Christ-centred.

Christ is the active power that preserves creation’s coherence - cosmos instead of chaos

Without Christ’s sustaining activity, everything would disintegrate

8. He is Preeminent

Colossians 1:18

The practical implication cuts directly to your heart. A believer who doesn’t hold Christ first experiences misery, and this misery persists until Christ occupies the preeminent position in your heart.1 Christ demands you step down from the throne of your life; He must be king of the hill and number one on your priority list, refusing to share that position.1

Through His resurrection, Christ functions as the originator of new creartion

He is the source relationship - how the church derives vboth its existence and meaning

His resurrection positioned Him as the beginning point of a new peope who share His victory over death

The church is an organism, not an institution

9. God Dwells in Him

Colossians 1:19

This revelation is staggering because it collapses the distance between the infinite and the finite—God’s complete nature isn’t distant or abstract but permanently embodied in a person you can know and follow.

The radical implication: God’s pleasure is found in his Son, and God is pleased with us because of his Son.2 You don’t earn God’s favor through your own righteousness. Instead, your orientation to life depends upon God’s pleasure with his Son.2 This transforms anxiety into security—your standing before God rests entirely on Christ’s sufficiency, not your performance.

God’s complete nature dwells in Christ both in His eternal deity and His permanent humanity

Fully God and fully man - hypostatic union

God’s Fullness (= completeness) dwells permanently in Christ

Complete equality of essence with the Father and the Holy Spirit (θεότητος),

Christ’s fullnes is a cornerstone for understanding both Christology and Christian identity

We experience spiritual fullness because we are in Christ in whom ‘all the fullness of the Deity lives’

This fullness includes victory over sin, new life, full and final forgiveness and protection from evil powers

10. Peace by the blood of his cross

Colossians 1:20

The radical news is this: peace with God isn’t something you must negotiate, earn, or construct—it’s already been accomplished through Christ’s death, and you simply receive it by faith.

Here’s where the excitement erupts: When God punished His own Son through the cross, peace was established between God and humanity1. Christ established harmony by ending the disturbed relations between God and man, restoring proper relations between them2. The blood of Jesus doesn’t merely symbolize peace—it is the payment that makes peace possible.

The radical implication transforms everything about your standing before God. You now stand in God’s presence with nothing against you—nothing He could even hold against you—provided you believe the truth and stand firm in it3. Your past, your failures, your shame—all addressed through Christ’s sacrifice. God’s enemies become God’s friends through faith in Christ2.

What makes this genuinely exciting is the finality. Peace has already been made at the cross; Christ made it through His own blood1. You’re not waiting for peace to happen or hoping God will eventually accept you. The work is complete. All you must do is trust Christ’s death on the cross as sufficient payment for your sin2. That’s the thrilling news—access to God’s presence and favor rests entirely on what Christ has already accomplished, not on anything you must still achieve.

Christ demonstrates His spiritual preeminence through His sacrificial death,

His blood reconciles humanity to God by presenting blievers before Him.

The whole cosmos underwent disruption through its failure to recognise Christ’s preeminence; Christ repairs this rupture through his death on the cross

His blood paid the ransome to liberate people from sin’s bondage

Christ reconciles all things on a cosmic scale, not just human beings but the entire created world

The universe is rconciled in that heaven and earth have been brought back into their divinely created and determined order through Christ’s resurrection and exaltation