Sermon Tone Analysis

*Colossians 1:15-23     Does God need a new image?*

*Theme*: Jesus makes God fully known to us

*Aim*: To want to know God through Jesus

 

Is Christianity the only movement in the word that doesn’t recognise the importance of having a good image?

Surely it’s about time that God got with the times and released a new image for himself.

Something hip with a catchy tag line in lower case letters.

The celebrities know that image is important.

Think about how many changes of image Madonna has been through over the last twenty years.

She’s had the bad taste bride phase in the eighties, then she went though the sex crazed leather clad biker girl phase in the 90s, from the Operatic diva image in the days of Evita and finally and now she’s doing the trendy modern mum thing to go with her children’s book release.

The corporate giants know image is important too.

In 2000 the transnational oil giant British Petroleum re-branded itself as "bp: beyond petroleum."

The re-branding was part of an effort to portray BP as an environmentally friendly energy company rather than an oil company.

They replaced their logo a vibrant green-white-and-yellow sunburst to symbolize their commitment solar power and they changed the company name to use lower-case letters because focus groups told them it was friendlier than the old imperialistic capital letters.

So, what do you think?

If we gave God an opportunity to re-brand himself for the twenty first century, do you think he would take it?

How would you advise him if you were his marketing consultant?

Well, 2000 years ago that’s precisely what God did.

He made himself clear with a new image.

Well, it’s not quite right to say it was a new image, because it’s not that there was anything wrong with his image before then.

But this was his once for all statement when God would make his image known to the world.

So what was his logo or his slogan?

What was the catch phrase that God chose to express himself perfectly?

Well, here’s the big surprise for us: it was none of these – it was a person.

God’s image is (according to verse 15) the person we call Jesus.

*15** He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

* *So here is my first point: Jesus makes God known to us in person* The radical claim that we’re making today is nothing short of this – that God can be known by every one of us here personally by getting to know Jesus.

He is the image of the invisible God.

How can that be?

Well, Jesus is uniquely qualified to make God known to us for this reason, because he is God himself.

That’s what the next few verses tell us.

v15 tells us that he is the firstborn over all creation.

That doesn’t mean that he was the first one to be born in creation, for plainly there were many millions of people born before Jesus was.

The firstborn son in ancient culture was the heir of the estate.

Something like Jaime Packer.

When Kerry Packer dies (is he still alive?)

then Jaime will inherit the entire packer empire.

And Jesus is the firstborn in that sense – of all creation.

He is going to inherit the entire creation – the earth, the sun, the entire solar system, the whole universe will belong to him.

Why?

Because it was all made by him and for him.

*16** For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.*

Not only did he make the entire universe for himself, but according to verse 17 it only continues to exist because he wants it to.

*17** He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.*

That chair is holding you up right at this moment because Jesus Christ is holding it together for you.

The electricity is pulsing through this microphone, the sun is shining outside, the blood is surging through your veins, all because Jesus Christ wants it to be that.

It all exists because of Jesus and for Jesus.

I’ve been reading this book on the plane on the way over.

It’s a fascinating and exhilarating history of science.

And in quite a few places Bill Bryson acknowledges the limits of science.

Speaking about atoms he waxes eloquent about how amazingly numerous and clever they, and how incredible it is that they make us who we are.

But then he acknowledges that no-one really knows why they do that.

Why do atoms come together to make people?

What is their motivation?

They seem to have no reason to do it.

It doesn’t make them happy or better little atoms in any way.

But still they comply and make us what we are.

They do what they do because of Jesus.

And what’s more, according to verse 18, Jesus is not only the heir and sustainer of this universe, but also of the next one.

See that word firstborn again there in verse 18:  18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and *the firstborn from among the dead*, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.

Why is Jesus uniquely able to make God know to us?

Because he is very God himself.

He made the universe for himself, he sustains it, and when he re-creates it afresh he will inherit the new creation too.

In short, as verse 19 puts it, *“**For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him”** **Jesus makes God known to us in person* *Illustration*Let’s say you wanted to get to know an Australian male.

You could send a fax to the Australian Consulate down on The Strand and ask them to send you a photograph and maybe that would give you some idea.

He’d probably be standing there with a cricket bat looking sorrowful and dejected right now.

They could also fax you a list of typical Australian male qualities: culturally refined, articulate, a moderate drinker, a careful listener and sensitive to the needs of women.

You could read a list like that and build up in your mind an image of what your typical Australian male is like.

But the only real way to get to know an Australian male is to meet one and get to know him personally.

Only then could you discover for yourself that he is, in fact, brash and insensitive, sports-obsessed, beer swilling, utterly devoid of culture and hopelessly mystified by the female species.

*Application*God wants to be known personally, and that’s why he has chosen to make himself known this way, by coming into the world as a person - the person of Jesus Christ.

That’s why his image is not a logo, a slogan, an airbrushed supermodel.

It’s a flesh and blood, real, living, breathing person called Jesus.

And that’s why Christianity is not about rules, regulations or rituals.

It’s about knowing God personally, having a real, living relationship with the God who wants to be known by every one of us personally.

Let me ask you something: isn’t that what you’ve been searching for all your life: to know God?

Maybe you didn’t even realise it.

Isn’t there deep inside, in the secret place of all of our hearts, an ache in the soul that just won’t go away?

It’s a continual thirst and a restlessness that is always there when we rise in the morning and when we lie down at night.

It’s there in the most wondrous moments of life and also in the most sorrowful.

It lurks behind every smile and every handshake.

A perpetual, unremitting thirst that will never be satisfied until we come to know God.

We might try and satisfy it with all kinds of other things.With pleasurewith possessionswith successwith powerwith drugs or alcoholwith romancewith family But the ache in the soul never goes away, does it?

And in the secret place of the heart, in the quietness of the night when it’s just you and your thoughts … it’s still there.

That’s because it’s an ache for God – to know him.

And it will never be satisfied until it is satisfied in Jesus.

He is uniquely qualified to do it, because he is the God himself.

Listen to what he says in John’s gospelJohn 4:14 (ESV)  *“whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever.

The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

* Jesus makes God known to us in person.

/Link/But it’s not quite as simple as I’m making it sound, is it?

Because while there is an ache in our soul to know God, there is also a secret power at work in us that keeps getting in the way.

If we’re really honest with ourselves, there’s something in us that is profoundly opposed to God and all his ways.

We might put it in mild terms that make it sound acceptable, “I’m not perfect.

I do my best.

I’m not a murderer.”

But look at how the Bible puts it in verse 21, *21** Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your /evil/ behavior.*

And that is our second point today.

Point 2: *Jesus makes peace between us and God* Because of our evil behaviour, we have two problems.

We are alienated from God and we are enemies in our minds.

God is opposed to us, and we are opposed to God.