It's ALL About Christ pt 2

Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. It continues to be my great honor and privilege to share the Word of God with this congregation.

You may be familiar with the expression, “falling down the rabbit hole.” This is a phenomenon when we become so entranced by a subject that we go deeper and deeper in study so as to find out as much as possible. Before you know it hours may have passed while you were singularly focussed on the topic and all the various aspects of it you were able to discover. In our digital world, this is so easy to do. One page links to the next. Video after video. All of a sudden its midnight and you’ve been staring at your phone for hours.

When used in moderation, this can be a good thing. You can learn new skills or facts that can be applied to your home or work life. But often this time spent falling down the rabbit hole is frivolous and a waste of time. I remember one time fairly recently where I found myself completely wrapped up investigating and digesting the current standings of a small semi-pro soccer league in England. Now this was ridiculous for a few reasons. I knew none of the players. I knew none of the teams. I didn’t even recognize most of the cities the teams were in. But worst of all, I don’t even like soccer! But one thing led to another and there I was! For anyone interested, as of earlier this week, the King’s Lynn Town Football Club were in first place in the Vanarama National League North. If those words don’t mean anything to you, that’s okay because I don’t really get it either!

Falling down the rabbit hole for pointless things like semi-pro English soccer is a huge waste of time. But there are times when intensive study and captivating has its benefitS. That may be like creating a project For work. Preparing for a test. Or even getting caught in deep conversation with family or friends.

This morning, it is my intention that we would fall down the rabbit hole of something more worthy of our attention than anything we could ever imagine. I hope that your curiosity is not just piqued, but consumed with the grandeur of our subject matter.

This morning we are continuing our look at the greatness of Jesus Christ. Through our study of Colossians, we have already seen that He is the physical image of God. He is the heir of all creation. The same creation that He created! He is before all things and He holds all things together.

These truths on their own are big enough to consume our intellectual efforts for an eternity, but the person of Christ revealed to us in Scripture is even more than that!

It is my desire that as we walk through our text today, that we would collectively dwell upon and fill our minds with the revealed greatness of Jesus Christ. This is a plea for Christian Meditation, not an emptying of the mind for the purpose of enlightenment, but a filling of the mind with the Light of God shining to us through His Word. As we dwell upon the greatness of God we undoubtedly praise Him for that greatness. I would hope that as the truth of Scripture fills our minds, we would all proclaim as the Psalmist did in Psalm 104:

Psalm 104:31–34 ESV

May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works, who looks on the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains and they smoke! I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being. May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord.

I sincerely hope that as we dwell on the Word today, that our intention is to be pleasing to the Lord. To rejoice in Him as we take a deep look at the second person of the triune God, Jesus Christ.

Church, be excited as we look upon the person of Christ.

John Owen wrote, “The revelation made of Christ in the blessed gospel is far more excellent, more glorious, more filled with rays of divine wisdom and goodness than the whole creation, and the just comprehension of it, if attainable, can contain or afford. Without this knowledge, the mind of man, however priding itself in other inventions and discoveries, is wrapped in darkness and confusion.

This therefore deserves the severest of our thoughts, the best of our meditations, and our utmost diligence in them. For if our future blessedness shall consist in living where He is, and beholding His glory, what better preparation can there be for it than a constant previous contemplation of that glory as revealed in the gospel, that by a view of it we may be gradually transformed into the same glory?”

There is nothing more worthy of our attention and contemplation than the revealed person of Jesus Christ, our Savior.

With that in mind, would you open your Bibles to Colossians 1.

Today we should see five more treasure troves to explore in the character of Jesus Christ. Let us begin with the first three of those seen in verse 18.

Colossians 1:18 ESV

And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

We’re going to parse this verse into three sections, each of which illuminating a fascinating truth about Jesus Christ.

The first we see is that He is the Head of the body, the Church.

I’d love to give you a clever note or title, but the Simplicity of that statement stands for itself. Christ is the head of the body. The body is the church.

While that is a simple sentence, it had profound implications.

When we think of someone heading up something, we may think that they are the leader of an organization. While there is a leadership relationship between Christ and the church, it is much deeper than that. Christ is not just the figurative head of an organization, Christ is the literal head of an organism!

Leaders of organizations come and go, just recently the department store Belk, or as my family says in Corbin, “belks”, has named a new Chief Executive Officer after the last one unexpectedly left for another company. Organizational heads are constantly changing.

That cannot be said for the head of an organism. Despite what some wild theorists out there may dream up, there is no such thing as a head transplant. An organism without a head is left to flail about until eventually all motion stops.

I say all of this to illustrate Christ’s true relationship with the church. Christ has full control over every part of the church. Christ is the giver of life to the church. Christ gives direction to the church.

We need to note three applications from this understanding.

First, as a body, those who are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ are to work TOGETHER. There is no need for rivalry, resentment, and discord in the body of Christ. If you look to those who are sitting beside, if they share in the profession of faith in Jesus as Lord, then they are working WITH you as mutual members of the same body, working in concert to serve the head.

The church body metaphor is used thoroughly in 1 Corinthians 12. For time’s sake today, I’m only going to bring up a few verses, but I highly encourage you to study that chapter and see the coordination there is between believers in service to Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 12:17–18 ESV

If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.

When it comes to our service in the body of Christ, please know that God has chosen you for your specific purpose as well as He as chosen me for mine. We don’t have to be jealous of another person’s gifting nor downplay our own! All those who are in the Body of Christ were CHOSEN by God to be there and serve the purpose He has for you! God arranges the members. He put the people where He needs them to be. In our sinful flesh, we want to be a knee when God has placed us to be an elbow. The knee isn’t greater than the elbow! Stop tearing down others or even yourself and look for ways to joyfully serve in the body TOGETHER!

The next application of Christ being the head of the body, the church is that it is the purpose of the Church to serve Christ. That means that everything we do in the church should be done FOR Christ.

This might sound simple and pedantic, but we really must give it our attention. Christ, being the head of the church, means that all of the ministries we put on, participate in, or support must be focussed on Him. I am not saying that this is the case in our congregation, but too often in the church world, sacred cows of tradition and personal preference take the place of the mission of the church, that is following the Lord. We shouldn’t seek change in what we do simply because we like the thrill of change. We shouldn’t hold on to things simply because that’s the way they’ve always been. We SHOULD be sincerely desiring to follow the Lord and honor Him through submission to Him and serving Him effectively and efficiently in the context that He has placed us in. The church is not here to serve my wants, my desires. The church is here to serve Christ, its head. May every decision we make and every project we start be done with the intent to serve CHRIST and Christ alone.

The final application of Christ being the head of the church that we will discuss this morning, is that if a group does not have Christ, they are not a church. They may claim the name church. They be given 501(c)3 status by our government, but a Christ-less organization is no more a church than a puppet is a real boy. Now, Pinnochio is a fantasy tale. The only way a puppet church can become a part of the real body of Christ is through the power of the Holy Spirit, convicting of sin and faith in the true Jesus shown to us here in Scripture. Do not forget what we mentioned last week. A false Jesus is no Jesus. Any organization promoting a false Jesus is not apart of the body of the true Jesus. Therefore, we must be weary of pretenders. We serve not man, nor fiction, nor tradition, we serve the Living Jesus Christ, the Head of His Church.

Return to Colossians 1:18

Colossians 1:18 ESV

And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

Not only is Christ the head of the church, but Paul continues to explain that Christ is the beginning, meaning the creator, the establisher of the church. Christ comes first in the Church.

He then identifies Jesus as the first born from the dead. This description should draw us back to the concept we looked at last week. Jesus being the first born is not necessarily tied to chronology, but rather to position. Albert Barnes gives a helpful explanation of this descriptor: This means that Jesus is...

“At the head of those who rise from their graves. This does not mean literally that he was the first who rose from the dead, for he himself raised up Lazarus and others, and the bodies of saints arose at his crucifixion; but it means that he had the pre-eminence among them all; he was the most illustrious of those who will be raised from the dead, and is the head over them all. Especially, he had this pre-eminence in the resurrection in this respect, that he was the first who rose from death to immortality. Others who were raised undoubtedly died again. Christ rose to die no more”

We should be noting here that Christ is quite literally, the GREATEST. I don’t mean that in the colloquial ways its used in our modern vernacular, “oh have you had that iced coffee, it’s the greatest!” No! When we say that Jesus is the greatest, it is to the fullest and deepest expression of the phrase. Jesus is the firstborn, the protokos in Greek, the highest in rank from all the dead.

Jesus is the only one to have ever yet been raised from the dead to a glorified body. And the absolutely amazing thing for all those who believe in Him, is that when the Lord says its time, we too will be raised into glorified bodies.

1 Corinthians 15:19–23 ESV

If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.

The glorious resurrection of Jesus Christ assures us of our own glorious resurrection. Not that we will be made equal in power or glory, but that we will live with and serve Him for eternity!

Christ’s glorious resurrection and sharing that with all those who believe in Him confirm His preeminence in all things.

Go back to verse 18 once more.

Colossians 1:18 ESV

And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

Christ created everything, holds all things together, and defeated death itself returning in full glory, proving that in every single thing He is preeminent. To put it simply, eternally and factually Christ comes first. He is above all things. Personally, in our live, Christ should and deserves to come first always.

I ran across an illustration this week of a girl who was taking a photography class. She was given the assignment to shoot an image of a person. She chose her subject to be her six-year-old daughter. She took her daughter out to a country hillside. As she was setting up the pose she noticed a beautiful apple tree. She thought she couldn’t pass up on including it in the photo. She takes the photo, proud of her work and turns it in.

She is surprised and confused when she receives bad remarks from her instructor. She asked the instructor what the problem was and the instructor told her, “The apple tree distracts from the true beauty and intention of the photo, that being your little girl. It competes with the eye for attention. Your assignment was to have one subject and focus on her.”

“As disciples of Jesus Christ, we must center our attention only on Him. Like amateur photographers, we are often attracted to the "apple trees in full bloom." We pay more attention to our hobbies, friends, family, or work.

Christ commands our attention because He is "the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality" ( 1 Timothy 6:15-16). That may mean relegating something we deem to be important to the background--or cropping it out of the picture altogether.

Whatever distracts us from Jesus has to go. As the preeminent One, He must be the single focus of our lives”

Jesus is and is to be preeminent in all things.

I’d like to ask you to evaluate your priorities. What are the things that you are placing in the front of your life’s photo. I can tell you this, if there is anything in the main focus other than Jesus, your priorities need to be realigned. Praise be to God that He has allowed you the opportunity to hear His Word and act accordingly. If you have breath, then you have opportunity all the more to give Him all the glory. He is worthy. He is preeminent.

From the declaration of preeminence, Paul goes even further to describe why Jesus is worthy of our focus. This is the fourth fascinating truth of Jesus for us to meditate upon.

Look at verse 19

Colossians 1:19 ESV

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,

The fourth fascination of Jesus Christ is that He is fullY God!

Now if you were to take this verse and compare translations, you will get a wide variety of the specific words used to construct Colossians 1:19. If you want to have a deeper conversation about the construction of this verse, come find me after (https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/66228/what-does-it-mean-that-it-pleased-the-father-for-all-the-fullness-to-dwell-i).

But the take away, what we all must understand is that the real meaning of this verse is that the fullness of the Godhead always dwelt in Christ.

It says ALL the fullness of God. Every bit of it. Jesus is not an insufficient, lesser than member of the Godhead in anyway.

Spurgeon noted, “It tells us that Christ is substance and not shadow, fulness and not foretaste. This is good news for us, for nothing but realities will meet our case. What joy these words give to us when we remem­ber that our vast necessities demand a fulness—"all fulness"—before they can be supplied!”

In our sin, we have a real and deep need for a Savior. A less than Jesus would not be capable to supply what we need. But praise be to the Triune God for the Son, fully god, fully man, who was fully capable of saving a wretch such as I!

You may have heard, even from this pulpit, that Jesus is fully God and fully man so much that it doesn’t mean much to you anymore. We need to see that this is a revelational reality. It is a big deal. In fact, as Paul is writing to the Colossians here, there were gnostic heretics in Colossae at this time that were teaching people that Jesus was cool, but that he was more of a step towards God. There were other spiritual beings besides Jesus that made up a spiritual super team of sorts. They taught that each these beings divided up the divine powers and attributes. It was very similar to a Greek pantheon of the gods. One in charge of thunder, one healing, and oh yeah other there is that Jesus Guy. What is interesting for us to see is that this group in Greek was called “pleroma”. In verse 19 here, Paul says writes that ALL of the PLEROMA, the full divine powers and attributes of the divine, dwell in Christ! Christ is not some inferior emanation (coming out of the Godhead through intermediate stages or matter). Christ IS the second person of the Triune God.

At this point you may be thinking that this is all highly technical and a bit of a mind twister. Allow me to remind you that we said these truth of Jesus were going to be treasure troves to explore. We shouldn’t expect to grasp the intricacies of the triune God in a 30 minute message. However, we should all take note the great implication there is in Paul showing us the Christ has all the fullness of God, that Christ is Fully God.

That implication is that when Christ died on the cross, that was quite literally God, dying for all those who believe in Him. See how this follows into our last verse today:

Colossians 1:19–20 ESV

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

Jesus, fully and eternally embodying every divine attribute of God, that is Jesus, being God, made reconciliation, peace, by the blood of His cross.

This is the final treasure trove for our exploration this morning. God the Son brought peace through the blood of His cross.

Now, I want to be clear hear. Some try to twist the “all things in Verse 20 to suggest some sort of universalism in which everything including those who hate God will enjoy heaven for eternity. Such an interpretation is why I have consistently warned from trying to take any verse in a vacuum. God has given us the FULLNESS of His Word for our edification. To say that Colossians 1:20 teaches universalism would be to say that the words of Christ in John 3:18 and 3:36 amongst many other passages are lies.

Norman Geisler wrote, “Paul is not speaking about universal salvation here, but simply universal sovereignty of Jesus Christ. In other words, all authority has been given to Jesus Christ in heaven and on earth (Matt. 28:18). By virtue of His death and resurrection, Christ as the Last Adam is Lord over all that was lost by the First Adam.”

The mode through which Christ has brought peace is the cross.

Pastor T W Hunt shared a story. “A man in Ohio asked him a difficult question. He said, "I do not understand the difference in the two testaments. In the Old Testament, God is so terrifyingly holy that He is constantly telling us to keep our distance. In the New Testament, however, He is warm and loving. There He comes close to us. They are opposite pictures to me. Can those two opposites of holiness and love be reconciled?" Pastor Hunt told him, "Calvary reconciles those two opposites. Nothing like the cross of Christ shows us how holy God really is. The appalling and terrible requirements of God's awesome holiness called for nothing less than the cross to make us holy. At the same time, nothing like the sacrifice of Christ shows us how vast God's love is and how far He is willing to go to reach us in His infinite love." For two thousand years theologians have struggled with what are apparently two opposite poles (if infinity can have a pole) in God's nature—holiness and love. A closely related polarity consists of the apparent opposites of justice and mercy. Another is that of judgment and grace. On the one side we can group God's holiness, justice, and judgment. On the other side is His love, mercy, and grace. Pastor Hunt checked these words in my thesaurus and found that it listed them indiscriminately under such headings as divineness and God. To be God is to be holy and just, according to the thesaurus. Yet the same entries said that to be God is to be love—merciful and forgiving. Jesus' example must somehow reconcile these apparently antithetical qualities, since He is God.”

THREE CIRCLES GRAPHIC