Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

5.

That Jesus Christ is the Son of God, sent by the Father, begotten by the Holy Spirit, and born of the virgin Mary; that He lived a sinless and obedient life, suffered and died on the cross vicariously for the sins of those who believe in Him; that God raised Him from the dead, exalted Him both as Lord and Christ, and gave Him the Holy Spirit for His Church.

7.

That Jesus Christ is the only mediator between God and men; through Him and only through Him the believer has access to the Father.

Today we will look at the deity of Christ.

The title of the message is “Jesus Christ, the Supreme Son of God.”

We also said that when we talk about the person of Jesus Christ, we mean undiminished deity and perfect humanity united in one person forever.

Last week we looked at the humanity of Christ: Jesus Christ as the Humble Son of Man.

We saw His humility demonstrated by His selflessness, servanthood and His obedience.

A few years ago, the distinguished publishing house of Grosset & Dunlap called together a panel of 28 educators and historians and asked them to select the hundred most significant events of history, then to rank those events in order of importance.

Here is a list of some of those events:

Writing of the Constitution of USA

Invention of movable type by Gutenberg

Discovery of America

Life of Jesus of Nazareth

Discovery of the Airplane

Development of Ether

Development of the X-Ray

Take a moment and rank them as you think this panel would have ranked them from first to fourth.

Here are two clues: I will tell you that there are eleven events tied for third that are not listed here.

So leave #3 blank.

I will also tell you that five of these events tied for fourth.

So your task is to identify #s1, 2 and 4 according to the panel and then to place all of these events according to ranking.

Here are the results.

After months of labor, the panel reported that they considered the most significant event of history to be the discovery of America.

In second place was the invention of movable type by Gutenberg.

As I mentioned, eleven different events tied for third place, and five events tied for fourth place.

The events tying for fourth were the writing of the Constitution of our country, the development of ether, the development of the x-ray, the discovery of the airplane, and the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

Jesus tied for fourth.”[1]

Now this does not come as much of a surprise to any of us right?

Jesus Christ is often a mere after-thought for most of the world if not a curse word.

Though He may be mentioned at a baptism or a wedding ceremony or at Easter or Christmas, He is lost in a list of priorities of most people.

But how about us?

Where does Jesus Christ rank in our lives?

If we had a DVD of all of our lives this week, how would God rank what was important in our lives?

If we went deeper, was Jesus first in all our free time this week?

How about finances?

How about work time?

School?

Marriage?

As we think about our future?

Paul in Colossians today is speaking to a small church struggling with making much of Jesus Christ.

False teachers had come and taught that among other things, Christ, was not God.

He was a created being (that He was perhaps a chief angel) and thus made Him smaller than He truly was.

So Paul takes some time here to go over the resume of Jesus Christ.

Very likely this is an ancient Hymn, meant to instil in us how supreme and how highly we ought to esteem Jesus Christ.

And as we see how awesome He is, we cannot but help to make Him first and supreme in our lives.

I love that word supreme: highest, greatest, most excellent, superior in power and exceeding all others.

His thesis for this section can be found in .

Notice the word “preeminent.”

This is another great word, which means “to hold the highest rank in a group, be first, have first place.[2]”

All the translations are good here to hit the point home:

KJV: that in all things he might have the preeminence.

NIV: so that in everything he might have the supremacy.

NASU: so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.

NLT: So he is first in everything.

Paul gives the Colossians several reasons on why we should make Jesus Christ supreme, preeminent in their lives.

First of all:

I.   Jesus Christ is the revealer of God (v.15a, 19)

Let’s get into the text.

Paul ends his prayer for the Colossians and before he can take another breath, he can’t help but to declare the supremacy of Jesus Christ.

Look at the first part of .

Jesus is the image of the invisible God.

This means that Jesus shows us what God is like.

He made the invisible God visible for us.

He is God in skin.

That’s why He said, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.”

().

says, “He is the radiance of God and the exact imprint of his nature.”

It is not just similarity due to coincidence…like “hey, you look like so and so.”

He is the exact, perfect representation of God.

For example, no one alive today has seen Abraham Lincoln in person.

Neither have we met him.

But how do we all know what he looks like?

It’s because we have seen images of him on portraits.

Pick up a penny and we see him.

His image on the penny is his representation and manifestation.

It is actually Abraham Lincoln we see there.

In the same way, God, who is invisible, is represented and manifested in Christ.

It is actually God we see.[3]

There was a boy who looked up in the sky and asked his mother if God was up there.

She assured him that he was.

He replied, “Wouldn’t it be nice if he would put his head out and let us see him?”

What Paul is saying here is that God has put his head out; we have seen him.

Actually, God has done more than that.

He has stepped out of heaven, became a man, and lived among us.

He could not only be seen, but he could also be touched.

Jesus is God in a body.

He is the perfect picture of God.[4]

Look over at .

Paul says all of God’s character and essence is in Christ.

The word “dwell” means permanently abide.

He is not some smaller god or angel.

He is God!  “Fullness” was a popular word among the false teachers and so Paul mentions that all of the fullness is nowhere else than in Christ.

In fact, in :10he will say that we are “complete in Him.”

That is why He is totally supreme and absolutely sufficient!

You want to know what God is like?

Look at Jesus!

In Christ, God has come near.

Put Him first in your life because when you look at Jesus, you see everything that you need in God.

In Jesus we see that God is compassionate.

In Christ, we see that God is sensitive to our needs.