COLOSSIANS 1:15-23

Good morning. I'm Russ and this is one of us. Her name is Liv. Yeah, Liv is a senior, just now has become a senior at Coleraine High School. Some Coleraine people here.

So, yeah, there you go. She is a student leader in our student ministry. Loves the student ministry, and I asked her share one thing you love about it. Yeah. So I think one of my favorite parts about our student ministry is that one of our biggest goals is to make everyone feel welcomed.

And so, like, anytime they walk in that door, like, they just feel like they belong and they have a place where they can be themselves. And right now, we actually have something going on called tribes. And so every Sunday night during the summer, we play, like, these big fun games. And it's just this perfect time for everyone to connect with new people, meet new people, just have fun and be themselves. So that's one of my favorite parts.

And one thing can lead to another, and some people get to know Jesus. And so it's really cool to see everyone's journey with God. So good. That is what tonight at six o'. Clock.

Yes. From six to eight. Perfect. We are walking through the book of Colossians, reading Colossians together. And one thing we've committed to do is that one of us would read the scripture for the day over us.

And so this morning, that's Liv's job. So she's going to read Colossians for us. So if you've got a Bible with you or you got an app on your phone, feel free to pull that out, read along in your own translation and keep it open while we teach. So, Liv, read the Word of God for us. Yes.

So this is Colossians 1, verses 15 through 23. It says, the Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him, and for him he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 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.

For God was pleased to have all this fullness dwell in him and through him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior, but now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body, through death. To present you wholly in his sight without blemish and free from accusation, if you continue in your faith established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the Gospel. This is the Gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven and of which I, Paul, have become a servant. Perfect.

Have a seat.

As I mentioned, we are not just teaching through Colossians, we're reading it together. There is a half sheet if you've not grabbed one yet, or you can catch it on the website. Just a simple reading plan. The commitment is to either read the whole book every day, takes less than 15 minutes, or a chapter a day, or the passage we're going to teach the week before. I've been attempting to read the whole book every day.

I found that I was a little less consistent this week than the first week. And so you get to ask me how it's going when you see me next week and see if have done a little better. But what is true is that I have read and interacted with more scripture in the last two weeks than I was prior. Because we're doing this together. So join in with that.

Before we jump into today's passage, I want you to consider you for a moment that you were made by God. You are made by God. What the Bible says is that he was making everything and he was making it good. That's the word meaning, right, the way it's supposed to be. And every day he makes something and he says, this is good, good, good.

And then he gets to day six and he makes you and he says, very good. He says he made you in. Here's how it says in our image, he's made you good. Meaning, right? But what I want to center in on is this.

It means this, that you are not a simple creature. That you are beautifully complex. Just your body for a moment. A couple of big numbers here. There are 37.2 trillion chemical reactions happening in your body right now in this moment.

Your heart's gonna beat 100,000 times today. It's gonna pump five quarts of blood through hundred thousand miles of capillaries, veins and arteries. Do you need a nap because you're busy?

If we took those veins, arteries and capillaries in your body right now and we laid them end to end, they would encircle the earth four times. You are so extraordinarily complex in your body, in the cells of your body. Each cell of your body has 6, 6ft of DNA in it. So one cell, 6ft of DNA and your body has about 30 trillion cells. So that means if we stretched out end to end the DNA in your body today, it would reach 34 billion miles.

That is meaningless to me. It's so big. So for perspective, the Voyager. Voyager 1 is a space probe. We launched it in fall of 1977 and is continuing to travel as of this year.

It is 15 and a half billion miles away from Earth. That's less than half of the DNA in your body. In distance, You are extraordinarily complex. Just, I'm just pointing out things about your body, let alone your mind, your will, your brain, and how it's working, the way your spirit works in you. You are extraordinarily complex.

This question, what kind of being does it take to make a unique, uniquely extraordinarily complex being such as yourself? It takes a being who is so much more than you and so much more than complex. That is what we're stepping in today, because Paul is giving us a glimpse of a God that is that big, so much bigger, so much more intricate, so much more complex than even we are. And his name is Jesus. I know many of you love the shows and it's a fantastic show, really beautiful portrayal of Jesus.

But if that is the image you have of Jesus, that's incomplete. John, one of his earliest followers as an old man, has a vision and he writes it in the book of Revelation. And when he sees Jesus, this is what he looks like. He wrote it down for us. It's traveled through the ages.

God wanted us to have it inspired by him. Revelation 1. I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned, I saw seven golden lampstands. And among the lampstands was someone like a son of man, dressed in a robe, reaching down to his feet.

This is Jesus. And with a golden sash around his chest. The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow. And his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze, glowing in a furnace.

And his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand he had seven stars. And coming out of his mouth was a sharp double edged sword. His face was like the sun, shining in all its brilliance. Somebody make that movie, please.

Whatever we think of Jesus today, whatever you think of him, there is more to him. Born of God to a young woman who had never slept with a man, he grew up in a poor, working, poor family as an illegitimate child in the backwoods of the Roman Empire. And he began as a blue collar worker. Eventually he adopted role of a roving teacher. And he taught about a God who is with all people and for all people.

And he invited people into a life of trust in that God and a relationship with that God where people could live free and easy, giving the grace to each other that they received from him, and loving their neighbors and even their enemies. And in a time when people were looking for a leader to take charge of a revolt, he taught about a kingdom. God's kingdom. Kingdom. And they were ready to make him their king.

And he took on that role as king, but not in any way that they ever expected. As our rescuing and life giving king. He surrendered himself to death, executed on a cross as the King of the Jews. And it was through his sacrificial love and through the power of the resurrection that he defeated our enemies, our great enemies. Sin, Satan, death.

And he paved the way for you and I to experience the life God had made us for from the very beginning. He is all of that and he is so much more. He's the most influential person to walk the earth. There has been in the last several years a ongoing conversation among non Christian scholars about the impact Jesus has made on our culture today. One historian, his name is Tom Holland.

Not the spider man. Don't get too excited. This is an historian, Tom Holland who set out to write a book about how the Roman Empire has shaped our modern culture. And as he researched, he was surprised that wasn't the case. He wrote an entirely different book.

It's called Dominion. It's about that thick. And it is about how the way we think of morality and our values and our social norms as a culture are rooted in Jesus. That through Jesus and really going all the way back to Genesis 1, there was taught and modeled this deep value for human dignity, the inherent worth of every individual made in God's image. And that is the foundation for the way we think today about human rights and freedom and justice and legal systems and charity and compassion and equality and health care and education.

He is the most influential person to walk the face of the earth. And there is yet more to him. He is all of this and he is more. Remember, Paul is writing to people who have people showing up and saying, hey, you need Jesus, but you need Jesus plus the secret knowledge or Jesus plus these traditions. And Paul's reinforcing and going, stop all that.

Jesus is more than enough. Cause there's more to him than you'll ever get to. And the way that he does this is he either writes or quotes this really thick poem. It's formed like an Old Hebrew poem. It's a poem.

Or maybe it was a hymn. Could have been a hymn. They sang. But he resorts to poetry to try to describe how big Jesus is. This is a thing we do when we're talking about things that are bigger than we have words for.

We write songs about it. How many songs about love are there out there?

And Paul just goes, okay, I don't know how to tell you this directly. Cause it's bigger than the words I have. So here's a song, here's a poem, here's a way that we can talk about this. We go to metaphors and images. And what you'll see here are kind of three things in general.

One is that Jesus is over all creation.

Another is that Jesus is initiating new creation, making all things new. And then he gets personal about how he's making us new, reconciling us as a part of new creation. So let's walk through it. It's going to be a little thick for a couple of minutes. And then we'll bring it home.

The Son is the image of the invisible God. This is verse 15. The firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created things. In heaven and on earth, visible and invisible.

Whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things. Things have been created through Jesus. And for him, he is before all things and in him all things. This is the present tense. Hold together.

He starts, and he says, he is the image of the invisible God. One of the deepest questions humans have is, does God exist? And if so, what is that God like? Paul is answering that question. He's saying, yes.

And if you want to know what that God is like, look at Jesus. Jesus himself said, anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. See, God is big enough, complex enough to create all things with a word. Jesus is that big. He's too big for us to know.

And yet he makes himself knowable in Jesus as he becomes one of us. And then he is firstborn over all creation. Notice what it doesn't say. He's not firstborn of creation. What Paul is not saying is that Jesus is a created being.

He is firstborn over all creation. See, firstborn had a meaning for people in their day that it doesn't have for ours. It's a significant role. There's a deep value set on the firstborn. Fathers pass the authority, their authority to the firstborn son as the rightful heir of the family estate.

So the firstborn would carry on the mission of the Father and the family. So here is Jesus Carrying on the mission of the Father. He is God, become human. The eternal Son of God, who brought creation into being. He's so big.

He brought creation into being and then he has all authority. God's royal power arrived in Jesus in whole new way.

How big? Pay attention to two words, all things. For in him all things were created. Things in heaven and on earth, visible, invisible thrones, powers, rulers, authorities. All things have been created through Jesus.

And for Jesus, he is before all things. And in him, all things hold together. All, all things hold together. Muskrats, muskrats, supernovas, every atom in your body right now, he is holding it together, sustaining you. He's got you.

Side note, this may be for some of you. If he's holding all things together, the cosmos together, that is good news.

If you're someone who's not sure you can hold yourself together, he will hold you together.

He's big enough, able enough to work for you.

This is mind blowing how big this he is right now. Jesus is holding everything together. And yet we know he was a Jewish craftsman and a teacher from Nazareth.

Over and over again, in actions and in words, Jesus is letting us know that he's always more than he seems. A couple weeks ago, we talked about him forgiving sins. Humans don't forgive sins. That's the thing that only God can do. He talked about Himself in ways that only God could talk about himself.

He taught that he was the culmination of Old Testament scriptures. His earliest followers, people who knew him personally, some of them would still have been alive. As Paul is writing this letter from jail and they're going, yeah, this, this guy who was the teacher from Nazareth is actually right now holding the cosmos together. Among them was his own brother. How hard would it be for you to believe your brother is holding the whole universe together right now?

If you are that brother?

They're writing things like God's fullness dwelled in Jesus or in Hebrews. He is the exact representation of God's being. What I'm about to say I do not understand because he is bigger than what our brains can hold. That Jesus is in all ways God, and yet he laid that all down. He emptied himself out to become like you and me, human.

To show us who God really is and to rescue us through his blood, through his life, death and resurrection. And that he is a indescribable complex being far bigger than we can understand. And so we hold on to metaphors, one of those. Father, Father. This is the word that Jesus chose to describe the Father.

God the Father. It was Father. And what, at the very least that word means is this, that a father gives life. You ever read like the beginning of Matthew and you're like, what is going on? Because it's like, this guy begat this guy, begat this guy, begat this guy.

Our Father begat us, right? He is the source of our life. He gives us life. He is Jesus. What Paul is saying, Jesus is and has always been one with the Father and doing the things the Father did.

Catch this Father means that God is inherently outgoing, others centered, life giving. I can say it simpler, yet still not understand it in the way that John said it. He said God is love. He did not say God is loving. That I would understand.

He is saying in his very essence, God is love. I don't know how to love without an object.

I only know how to love love.

So here's what's in my head. What is in my head is this plate of sausages. It's always food. I'm sorry, is this plate of sausages that my wife and I got in this little small town. You were talking about Europe and being out and going, flashing back to Greece and this plate of sausages that a local butcher had made, that we sat in this little small town in the mountains in Greece.

And. And I can love those sausages. There's an object. But I can't be love. I can only be love.

Maybe if I'm a community in and of myself, that I am the object, that I am Father, Son and Spirit. And therefore I can be a community of love. And I can create, I can give life out of that community of love. God is love. God gives life to the Son and through the Son, to you and to me.

And when we talk about this, we're talking about something so much bigger. That God can be one and yet more than one. Father, Son and Spirit. He is a community of love. You can see why Paul resorted to poetry.

If you want to spend some more time thinking about things that you can't understand, like the Trinity. There's a beautiful book by Michael Reeves called Delighting in the Trinity. Here's just a taste. This God simply doesn't fit the mold of any other. The Trinity is not some inessential add on to God, some optional software that can be plugged into Him.

At bottom, in essence, this God is not first of all creator or ruler or even deity. In some abstract sense. He is Father loving His Son in the fellowship of the Spirit, A God who is in himself a community of love, who before all things could never be anything but love. Who before all things could never be anything but love. And if you trust and come to know such a being, it changes absolutely everything.

Paul says Jesus is over all creation is huge. And yet he's starting to create again and create anew, to take what we broke and to recreate verse 16. 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 supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him and through Him.

Here it is to reconcile to Himself all things. All things, whether things on earth or things in heaven. By making peace through his blood shed on the cross. Jesus started a movement. We call it church.

It's the sisters and brothers we follow Jesus with. And that's true in our everyday lives as this local church, this little sea church.

But as Josh got to experience last week, it also means this movement is a broad global movement, big C church that we are profoundly connected to people all across the world. In my experience, that's been in Egypt and Kenya and Ukraine, and in this beautiful little church just off the strip in Las Vegas. Jesus started this movement called the Church. And it only has ever had one leader. Jesus.

He is our head. We're the body. He's the head. And he is the absolute best thing about us. That this church, those brothers and sisters in colossae, being our forefathers and foremothers in the faith, they.

It started with people who were just living. They were on the margins of society and they were living quiet, faithful lives. What does that mean? They were doing certain things. They were adopting children who were being abandoned by their parents.

It was common in those days. They were living out a deep commitment to honor the covenant of marriage.

They were caring for poor people, whether they were part of them or not. They were taking such good care of poor and sick people that many of them were dying. As they cared for the sick, becoming sick themselves, they were welcoming anybody. Didn't matter your status, it didn't matter your ethnicity, it didn't matter your past, you were welcome to join in. And they responded to persecution without violence, praying for those who persecuted them.

They just kind of simply did the stuff that Jesus did.

And that little band grew and grew until it broke the Roman Empire itself. And it's always had one leader. And that leader is Jesus. He's the head over us, firstborn of the dead first. He's firstborn of a creation, firstborn of the dead.

What does that mean he is the first to rise? I've been listening at least the last couple of weeks, at least one day, listening to the message version Colossians. And in it, this part gets translated, that Jesus leads the resurrection parade. Imagine that. Except you're in the parade, right?

If you have entered into life with Jesus, he is the first to resurrect. But that is our future. Resurrected bodies, resurrected lives. He is the firstborn over the dead. He makes it all possible through blood shed on the cross.

His death and resurrection makes it possible for us to enter into this new creation, that he would reconcile us. This word reconcile turns up in the Bible a lot to reconcile us. It's a relational word. I may have mentioned before that I experienced a hard divorce in my early 20s, very short marriage, but we had to stand in front of a judge, the two of us together. And we had to give a name for why our marriage didn't work.

Had to go in the paperwork and we gave two words, irreconcilable differences. What did that mean? It meant we couldn't put it back together. What does it mean to reconcile that Jesus reconciles us? It means he's putting all things back together and he's putting you back together.

When you enter into life with him, it's good news. He reconciles and then he gets personal. Once you were alienated from God and you were enemies in your minds. Hold. Don't rush that.

If you're in life with Christ, this has been you. And if you are not yet, do you feel alienated? Have you experienced what it's like to feel isolated and apart? Alienated enemies enter your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has what?

Reconciled. Put back together you by Christ's physical body through death to present you what holy in his sight. Paul wants you to hear more. Holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation. If you continue in your faith, continue to trust him established and firm and do not move from the hope held out in the Gospel.

This is the good news. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, have become a servant. We can go from alienated and enemies to blameless and without accusation.

That's how big Jesus is. He is able and he is so good. Paul's going to spend the rest of this letter so good he's going to spend the rest of this letter just laying out the implications of this big thing he just threw down bigger than we can get our heads around.

And What I would say is this. There is just more to Jesus than you can ever imagine. Therefore, there is more to life with him than you can ever imagine. And he wants it with you. The God who became flesh and dwelt among us, the Son, as a person of the Trinity, a community, part of the community of love with the Father and the Spirit, our Teacher, our Master, our King.

He walked the earth. He got tired like we get tired. He broke down in the garden. And yet he's God he raised from the grave. And he is more and more and more.

He's bigger than we can imagine. And that's good, because who would want a God that's smaller?

And he invites us to know him and to be known by him, to abide in him, to live and move in Him. He is so big, he is able to take care of us. And he's so close that we know he cares.

And so how do we respond to a God like that? How do we respond to a Jesus like that? Paul settles on a word that turns up here. In Colossians, he uses the word mystery. And I wonder if that isn't maybe a good starting point for us to posture ourselves towards him as we would a mystery, meaning with wonder and humility and cultivating a spiritual curiosity.

Because however much you may know of Jesus today, and you may know a lot or you may know a little, however much it's only a partial understanding, there is always more. We want to be a church who actually do the things that Jesus says to do. In the Sermon on the Mount, he says ask, seek and knock. And what he's saying actually is an ongoing act. It's not just a one time ask or seek or knock.

It is keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking. You hear what he's saying? Keep coming, Keep coming with me, keep coming after me, keep pursuing, because you're going to keep on finding. You're going to keep on having the door open to you. You're going to keep on receiving.

Just keep on asking. I learned this week how many questions on average a child asks a kid 125 questions a day. And if you have a preschooler, you're like, ugh.

Do you know how many questions adults ask? On average? 6. That's almost one hand.

And Jesus says, what? Have the faith of a what child? Man, Be curious. Keep seeking. Keep wanting to learn.

Aw tozer. All our lives long we might talk of Jesus, and yet we should never come to an end to the sweet things that might be said of Him. Eternity will not be long enough to learn all he is or to praise him for all he's done. But then that matters not. That matters not.

For we shall always be with him and we desire nothing more. Paul to Colossians. You do not need anything more than Jesus because no matter how much of him you get, there will always be more. See, this thing we're doing is not about a philosophy or a history or a science. It's not really at its root, it's a religion.

It's an invitation into a life with a ultimate being named Jesus. And it is filled with all the mystery and surprises, wonder and beauty that comes with getting to know any being. We just passed. My wife, Jennifer Howard and I made it 30 years. This year.

She re upped. That's how it works. She said every year she gets to decide if she re upped or not. Joking. She didn't say that.

Here's been my experience. I've been a student of this one woman for 30 years. And there is always more to her to learn.

High level. I knew her as a teacher, I've known her as her mom, I've known her as a wife. About two decades ago, she stepped into a whole different career. One in human resources in these little organizations where it's very boots on the ground and strategic. And all of a sudden I realized I'm married to a field general.

Like, she is so good at organizing and arranging and telling people what to do when stuff gets done. It's like Patton. That's an old joke. You can look at it. It was a general, never mind looked more like me than my wife.

I'm just getting to the point that if that's true of her, that there's always more to her to learn. How much more? Is that true of the God of the universe, our King Jesus, who says, come do life with me, Come walk with me, come live with me.

Love this thing. From the Chronicles of Narnia. These are books that I read to my kids when they were little. There's this encounter that this girl Lucy has in meeting Aslan again. And Aslan is a lion, but he's a stand in for Jesus.

And she says, aslan, you're bigger.

And he says, it's because you're older. And she says, not because you are. And he says, no. And here's the beautiful thing, he says, every year you grow, you'll find me bigger. Every step you take with him, it's not as if he gets smaller.

He only gets bigger. So King Jesus, you're incomparable you are incomprehensible, indescribable.

Holding all things together right now. You created it all. You hold it all. You're at the center of the universe and the center of our lives. Not us.

It's you.

And we're right here, right now, with you.

And we want to lay down our agendas, our systems, all of our things. We want to lay down the boxes that we try to put you in.

And to commit our lives to taking each moment with you. This breath and every breath. Entrusting all of ourselves to you. Because we know you are here with us. And we know that you are big enough to care for us.

And you're close enough to love us. Amen.