Let's Talk About Jesus: Jesus is Lord
Let's Talk about Jesus • Sermon • Submitted
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1 Oh come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. 2 Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. 3 For the Lord is the great God, And the great King above all gods. 4 In His hand are the deep places of the earth; The heights of the hills are His also. 5 The sea is His, for He made it; And His hands formed the dry land. 6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. 7 For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture, And the sheep of His hand. Today, if you will hear His voice:
Intro:
1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, 2 To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are in Colosse: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, 2 To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are in Colosse: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Tonight, we will begin a study through the book of Colossians entitled, [Let’s Talk About Jesus]. The subject of tonight’s message is, [Jesus is Lord].
Sometime toward the end of the summer, I listened to a message by a leader in a different denomination. He preached at a larger church and mentioned he looked back in his notes to the first time he preached there.
It was in the 1980s. He remembered how the presence of God was so strong by the end of the revival, many people were getting saved, filled with the Holy Spirit, and baptized in water.
The pastor of the church was much older than him. He remarked, “I have been saying this for some time, but a lot of people try to come up with some insightful thought that is new to everyone. But if they will just preach Jesus, revival will come.”
That has rolled over and over in my mind. If we will just preach Jesus, He will come and do what only He can do. Since then, I have read scripture in a new light. I have written my messages with a different twist. I keep going back to the question, how did this principle or truth work in the life of Jesus?
If there is a book
Paul’s letter to the Colossians is one of his most Christ-centered epistles. Not that others minimized Jesus. But they had specific themes or topics:
Romans- righeousness
1 and 2 Corinthians- problems within the church
Galatians- salvation through faith, not legalism
Ephesians- the mystery of the church
Philippians- the joy of the Lord
1 and 2 Thessalonians- the coming of the Lord
1 and 2 Timothy and Titus- instructions to local pastors
Each these books dealt with issues that arise when we serve Christ. But Colossians specifically deals with the person and role of Jesus Christ, in the past, the present, and the future.
Within the first two verses Paul uses His name twice. Why did Paul write a letter focused solely on Jesus? He never visited the Colossian church. What stirred him to pray and write to them?
3 We give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of your love for all the saints; 5 because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel, 6 which has come to you, as it has also in all the world, and is bringing forth fruit, as it is also among you since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth; 7 as you also learned from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, 8 who also declared to us your love in the Spirit.
3 We give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of your love for all the saints; 5 because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel, 6 which has come to you, as it has also in all the world, and is bringing forth fruit, as it is also among you since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth; 7 as you also learned from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, 8 who also declared to us your love in the Spirit.
Epaphras was likely a convert of Paul. At some point, Epaphras brought the good news to Colosse. However, he was concerned. As young Christians, they were swayed by false doctrine.
Why did Paul bother with them?
He could have easily told his co-servant Epaphras, this is your problem. When Paul wrote this letter, he was under house arrest in Rome, awaiting his sentence from Caesar.
But Paul felt a bond with the Colossians. They needed help, but they had a solid foundation. Their church was built on the foundation of faith, hope, and love.
Their faith in Christ, caused them to have love for God and for each other. Therefore, Paul had hope, he was confident that with time spent, they could come to a greater understanding of Jesus’ role in their lives and in the church.
What was their problem with Jesus?
False teachers of the early church perpetuated a myth that Jesus came from God, therefore He was spirit, but not a human. They denied the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ.
They did not believe He was 100% God and Man. The problem with this heresy is if it was true, Jesus’ death was spiritual and not literal. If his death was not literal then His resurrection means nothing.
Therefore, to them, salvation does not come through faith in Jesus. Instead, they believed it was a result of enlightenment, where they obtained enough knowledge that comes from within. If they had enough knowledge, then they could one day go to heaven.
If they persisted in believing this false doctrine, they would contradict what Jesus Himself explained:
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
Paul knew the Colossians were sincere in their faith, they simply needed some spiritual help and maturity. He began with an explanation of Jesus as Lord.
As Lord, He is ruler and owner of this world! He took it back from Satan, who recieved it from Adam and Eve at the fall.
To see how Jesus is Lord, I want to look at three areas of His Lordship: [The Person of Jesus], [The Power of Jesus], and [The People of Jesus].
Let’s begin
1. The Person of Jesus
1. The Person of Jesus
9 For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; 10 that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; 12 giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.
Evidently the false teaching that filled Colossians concerned Epaphras enough for him to ask Paul for prayer. As Paul prayed, he determined the remedy was that God would show them who Jesus is as a person.
The false teachers emphasized everything as spiritual. The Gnostics did not believe Jesus was human. Instead they viewed Him as a Spirit, who revealed the God of the universe.
To them salvation was not to believe in the Person of Jesus Christ, but to look into the individual person. If the individual could tap into the secret knowledge they possessed inside of them, then they could obtain salvation.
If it sounds confusing, its because it is confusing. They did not teach Salvation through Jesus, instead, Salvation came through us. They deceived the immature Christians by proclaiming to have “superior” knowledge.
Therefore Paul prayed God would fill them with knowledge and spiritual understanding. They had confessed genuine faith in Him, however, if they started to believe the false teachers, they would not live in a way that honors Him.
Paul did not demean or insult them. He identified they possessed genuine faith. However, if their wrong thinking was not corrected, they would risk losing what they had in God.
He longed for God to make them supernaturally strong by imparting His wisdom to them that they might walk in the fruit of the Spirit.
Notice verse eleven, with the help of the Spirit, they could walk in patience and joy, two of the Fruit of the Spirit. But they had to remember the fact that Jesus was 100% God and Man on earth.
13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, 14 in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
What kind of Person is Jesus?
He is the only Person qualified to save us from our sins. Had Jesus’s death on the cross been figurative and not literal, the price of my sins would still stand.
When sin entered the world, death was the penalty. The wages of sin IS death. However, through the blood of Jesus, we have the forgiveness of sin.
When our sins are forgiven, we are transferred from the kingdom of darkness and brought into the kingdom of God. People cannot do this on their own.
But the Person of Jesus, is capable to bring salvation. Why? Because He shed His blood. It literally flowed down the cross. Now it is spiritually applied to our lives!
Let’s talk about the person of Jesus.
2. The Power of Jesus
2. The Power of Jesus
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. 18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. 19 For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, 20 and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.
20
Bible scholars and theologians call this an early church hymn about Jesus. It is as though Paul begins to sing about the authority, headship, and Lordship of Jesus.
Jesus has ultimate power because He reigns as absolute ruler and king of the heavens and the earth. Let’s dive into this hymn that describes the power of Jesus.
He is supreme in eternity- The image of the invisible God
Jesus did not just show up in Bethlehem. True, He was revealed to humanity in the manger. But Jesus has been around forever. He is not inferior to the Father, He is equal to the Father.
God wants to reveal Himself to us. He does this through the Son. To know God, we must focus on Jesus. He is the IMAGE, through Him we see the invisible God!
He is supreme in creation- firstborn over all creation
Every created thing was a result of the work of Jesus. When God created the heavens and the earth, Jesus was there. The Trinity worked in concert to give us what we have today!
By calling Him the firstborn, Paul speaks to a cultural norm of the first century. Everything passed onto the firstborn son when the father died. Therefore, the firstborn son in any family had control over the family.
As the firstborn of creation, He has supreme authority over creation! From the galaxies far away to the ladybugs that crawl on our houses, He is the creator!
He is supreme in the church- the head of the church
Without Jesus the church would not exist! He is the head of the church. This is not MY church, it is HIS church. While we serve in the church, it belongs to none of us. He started the church and it will ALWAYS be His!
He is supreme in resurrection- firstborn from the dead
While there are other resurrections in scripture, none was like Jesus. Every other person who rose from the dead eventually died again.
Not Jesus. He was resurrected to a glorified body. Therefore, we have hope that we too will be resurrected from this body and this earth to be with Him!
He is supreme in redemption- to reconcile all things
Jesus came, in the flesh, a literal body, to die as the penalty for our sins. Prior to His death, burial, and resurrection, humanity was separated from God.
However, because of the blood, we have peace with God, which would have been impossible had he merely been a spirit.
What a hymn! I would love to know the tune of it, because it summarizes the power of God in and through Jesus.
21 And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled 22 in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight—23 if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.
Paul’s reason for speaking of Jesus’ power is to show the Colossians, because Jesus was fully God and fully man, we are redeemed from the wicked works of the flesh.
Now, through His body and blood, He presents us holy and forgiven because He power over everything, including SIN! Therefore, we must press on and remain steadfast in the truth.
Paul called on them not to drift into falsehood and lies about Jesus. Everything they love about Him comes from the fact of who He is as Lord of all.
Therefore, we can come to Him because of His person and power!
3. The People of Jesus
3. The People of Jesus
24 I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church, 25 of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God, 26 the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints. 27 To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 28 Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. 29 To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily.
Now that Paul laid the foundation of Jesus as a person and His supreme power, how are we to live? We are transferred into the kingdom because of His power, what now?
First, we have the ability to rejoice in suffering. Paul wanted them to know life as a Christian is wonderful, but life as a Christian is not always easy.
However, if Jesus really lived and walked this earth as a man, we have hope.
I cannot get over:
15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.
16 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
There are times we go through difficulties, but we can make it and praise God in the process. How? Remembering who He is as the Lord of our lives!
Afflictions and attacks may come, but they will not stop us because we are in relationship with the one who overcame death, hell, and the grave.
As the People of Jesus, we rejoice and praise God regardless of what we face or how we feel!
Then through our suffering, we will proclaim Christ. Proclamation of Jesus comes through both words and actions, there has to be a balance.
Some “Christians” love to talk about how they are “Christians” but they do not like to live like they are “Christians.”
I told Bekah the other day, I had a thought, “you can’t get to heaven on Facebook likes!”
One author wrote, Satan is so deceptive. “He likes to borrow Christian vocabulary, but he does not us the Christian dictionary” (Swindoll, 117).
We cannot just talk about Christ. We must steward our lives in such a way that the word of God becomes alive through us. People need to see Jesus, who was a person, through people like you and me!
We can walk in confidence because it is CHRIST IN US, the hope of glory. Therefore, people of God must fully depend on Him and trust Him in all things.
We keep working for Jesus and doing all we can to glorify and honor Him. We can never take what He did on earth for granted. As people of God, we need to get closer to Him and fall more in love with Him!
Close:
Let’s talk about Jesus!
The thought that some might not believe Jesus was a real person was so worrying to Paul that he wrote this letter to a group of people he never met.
Why was Paul so concerned?
Because he fell in love with Jesus. He was so captivated with the Man who blinded him on the road to Damascus. He knew what it cost Jesus to save a sinner as terrible as Paul.
It was not easy for Jesus die for our sins, but to think people would minimize His suffering by claiming He was merely a spirit prompted Paul to set the record straight.
Who is Jesus? He is Lord! As Lord, He is supreme, all powerful, and there is no one like Him!
As I think of Paul’s words to the Colossians, I thought about our lives. I am not worried that any of us minimize Jesus’ role on earth and in heaven.
However, there are many people around us all the time who minimize Jesus, His role, and His greatness.
I wonder, does it grieve our hearts the way it grieved Paul? For me, I want to be so close to Him, know so much about Him, and communicate with Him so much, that when I see the sins of this world, I do not turn a blind eye.
I do not expect each us to write a four part letter like Paul did in Colossians, but I personally pray, God get me so in love with Jesus that I can’t help tell people about Him.
Get me so in love with Him that I will want to pray everyday.
Get me so in love with Him that I will want to spend time in His word everyday.
Get me so in love with Him that I will want to get lost in praise and worship.
Get me so in love with Him that even in suffering, I will rejoice in Him while I proclaim His name!
Get me so in love with Him that it becomes my life’s goal. I need to know Him more than I have ever known Him before!
Let’s talk abhotu Jesus! Let’;s make it all abotu Jesus! Let’s draw closer to Jesus!