A message on the centrality of Christ
“15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 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. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
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. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 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.”
Nick isn’t sure if he’s having a mid-life crisis or what. He loves his family and is thankful for his friends. He knows that there isn’t anything noticeably wrong with his life, but in a weird way that makes it all the worse because he doesn’t know what to change to make it better. He’s arrived at a suitable place in his career, but now it seems sort of pointless to him. It’s not that he doesn’t enjoy most of what he does; he just wonders why he is doing it at all
Nick is bumping up against some of the big questions of life. He’s wondering why he is doing any of this at all. He is wondering about the point of life. Maybe we just try to make it through every day as best we can and then one day, we run out of days and that’s it. Maybe there isn’t really a point or a purpose but trying to enjoy what we can enjoy while we can enjoy it.
You ever wonder about any of this kind of stuff? Nick does. If you do, Paul’s words today scratch where you itch. Paul would listen to Nick because Nick’s got important questions and then Paul would show Nick how everything he is thinking about does have a purpose and Paul would show Nick that the point is found in Jesus. The hands that hold everything together are the hands of the crucified one. That’s true about everything in Nick’s life. That’s true about everything in your life. That’s the claim of this sermon: the hands that hold everything together are the hands of the crucified one. We will see that, that gives Nick’s life and your life a great deal of purpose.
We will study this in two points. First: Jesus holds creation together. Second: the church and everything. We see that Jesus holds creation together in verses 15-17. We see what the church has to do with everything in verses 18-20.
First: Jesus holds creation together. We’ve been working our way through the book of Colossians. This letter was written to convince this first century church that trying to add anything to Jesus can only lead to having less. The Colossians were trying to add something to Jesus to find fulfillment. Paul was urging them to see that everything was found in Jesus.
You can’t do better than Jesus. You can’t do better than Jesus because Jesus is God; verse 15, “He is the image of the invisible God.” To know Jesus is to know God. As Calvin put it, “in Christ [God] shows us His righteousness, goodness, wisdom, power, in sort, His entire self.”
Jesus is the invisible God made visible. We humans are very sensory creatures. We test drive cars to get a feel for how they handle. When someone comes running into the house and tells us, “Come quick. You’ve got to see this for yourself,” we come quick because we do want to see it for ourselves.” We are sensory creatures. God knows this and although He didn’t need to, He graciously revealed Himself to us in a way that we could get our hands on. That’s Jesus. Jesus’ friend John described him as, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched.”
That’s Jesus. He is the invisible God made visible. He is the image of God as Paul puts it. Now we are made in the image of God. A few weeks ago, the eleventh and twelfth grade Catechism class talked about why we don’t make images of God. We don’t make images of God because they wouldn’t be as good as the images of Himself that God has already made, and that image is you. You are made in the image of God. That doesn’t mean that you look like God visually; God is spirit. It means that you were made to be like God. You were created in such a way that when someone looks at how you love, they are to see God’s love; when they see your wisdom, they are to see God’s wisdom. We are broken images because of our sin.
Jesus is the image of God to which we look, and when we watch him in action, we don’t just see a bit of what God is like, we see God Himself. We see what God is like with people who are lying to themselves. We see what God is like with people who really want to make what’s wrong right. To know Jesus is to know God so the message to the Colossians and for us is, “don’t settle for anything less than Jesus.”
Jesus is better than everything. He is supreme over everything. That’s what Paul meant by calling him, “the firstborn over all creation,” in verse 15. He wasn’t saying that the Son of God was created first as some groups like the Jehovah’s Witnesses interpret this verse; the rest of the verses make that clear, like verse 17, “He is before all things.” Paul wasn’t saying that Jesus was created too. He was saying that Jesus is better than everything. He is better than whatever you find most pleasurable.
Jesus created what you find most pleasurable; verse 16, “For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible…” This is another way of saying that Jesus is the creator God. Just put yourself in the shoes of, say, the disciple Matthew and hear that. You’ve got one of the most reviled job in society. You collect taxes from a defeated people for an occupying power. That didn’t seem to stop Jesus from calling you to be one of his disciples. As you get to know Jesus it becomes clear to you that what you’ve always believe is true—there is only one God—and that something you can’t begin to understand is also true—there is only God and this Jesus who took a shinning to you for some reason is God. This man with whom you spend your days over the past few years also created the light on the first day and separated the waters from the land on the second day. That would be thrilling. That same thrill is yours if you know Jesus. You know the God who created everything you’ve ever known.
Jesus also created realms beyond your senses; verse 16, “whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.” This refers to the angelic realm, both good and evil. If paganism continues to resurface in our culture, we will probably see increased interest in this spiritual realm. We will see more people trying to connect to it and manipulate it by way of astrology and the occult. There is a reason for that. That realm is real. It is powerful. The ancients knew that. Many other cultures today know that. What they need to know, and what need to remember, is that Jesus is also supreme over this realm as well. You don’t need more than Jesus. The word here is that there is nothing that you will encounter or could ever encounter that is beyond Jesus. The hands in charge of everything are the hands that were pierced for your sins. That means there is nothing to be afraid of.
It really is all about Jesus; verse 17, “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” You see the word “all” come up twice in this sentence; “he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Stoic philosophers of that day were quite fond of this word. The philosopher/emperor Marcus Aurelius who lived after Paul wrote, “O Nature… all things come from you, subsist in you, go back to you.” Those philosophers were trying to figure out what it life is all about. That’s what Nick is trying to figure out. Those philosophers decided that there was nothing more than nature and just being part of nature; “Maybe we just try to make it through every day as best we can and then one day, we run out of days and that’s it. Maybe there isn’t really a point or a purpose but trying to enjoy what we can enjoy while we can enjoy it,” as Nick put it.
The good news here is that all things don’t come from nature, subsist in nature, and go back to nature. The good news is that all things come from Jesus hold together and Jesus and will stand before Jesus; that’s good news if you are committed to Jesus. As Doug Moo put it, “what holds the universe together is not an idea or a virtue, but a person: the resurrected Christ. Without him, electrons would not continue to circle nuclei, gravity would cease to work, the planets would not stay in their orbits.”
Paul would say that if you can think of gravity without reference Jesus, your view of Jesus isn’t big enough. If you can think of your day-to-day routine without reference Jesus, your view of Jesus isn’t big enough. If you can think of anything without reference Jesus, your view of Jesus isn’t big enough.
That’s great news for everyone who loves Jesus. The one that we love is connected to everything. The hands that were pierced for our sins are the hands that hold everything together. During World War Two, many children were sent away from London because of the bombings. They moved in with distant relatives, acquaintances of their parents, or just willing parties who lived in the countryside. Now when these children moved in with these families, they lived by new rules. They didn’t know what these adults would be like. Many of them were doubtlessly afraid to leave their parents and live under the authority of adults, who for many of whom, were perfect strangers. When we become adults, we tend to forget just how helpless children feel and often are. They are quite subject to whims of adults, and it is a scary thing to find yourself coming under the power of strangers. Now imagine a little girl who is just terrified at this thought. She is visibly shaking on the train ride out of London. Her older brother holds her hand as they walk off the train and head to their new address. When they knock on the door, who should open it but their father? He was at the front but had been reassigned to help with civilian defense in this area. He had pulled some strings to have his children stay with him and he had already sent to London for their mother. Do you think that little girl would be afraid anymore? Of course not. The man who loves her best is the one in charge of the home. That’s your situation as a Christian. The one who loves you best is the one in charge of the everything; “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
That is made clear in a very striking way in what we are doing right now and in what we do as we scatter as a church throughout the week. The church is the people where Jesus’ control shines. Jesus is more important than we tend to think, and church is more important than we tend to think. That’s our second point: the church and everything.
The church is where the action is at. The world, our own flesh, and the devil are incredibly skilled at making that statement seem laughable, but the church is where the action is at. The church is the group of people who are being formed by divine hands more and more into the image of Jesus who holds everything together. Disciples of Jesus in Cambodia, in Russia, in Iran, and right here in Inwood are in a living relationship with the purpose of the universe; you see that relationship in verse 18, “he is the head of the body, the church.”
You can’t talk about your head without talking about the rest of you. You’ve never gone to the Black Hills, while your head went to the Twin Cities. There is a living connection between the two. Jesus sees this connection between him as the head and us as the body as real, which is why when Saul of Tarsus was killing Christians, Jesus asked, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” rather than, “why do you persecute my people?” Jesus sees him and us as one.
That’s incredibly good news. If your faith is in Jesus, you are one with the one who is in charge of everything. You are united with the purpose of the universe. Hudson Taylor had a powerful experience of this truth. He wrote about it to his sister saying, ‘Think what it involves. Can Christ be rich and I poor? Can your right hand be rich and the left poor? or your head be well fed while your body starves? Could a bank clerk say to a customer, “It was only your hand [that] wrote that check, not you,” or, “I cannot pay this sum to your hand, but only to yourself”?’ Of course not. You and your hand are one. If you withdraw $600 and the teller puts it in your hand, you have it and since you have it, your hand has it. You have what belongs to Jesus. You and him are one. Paul wanted the Colossians to see that this was a whole lot better than whatever the false teachers in Colossae were offering. We need to see that being one with Jesus is a whole lot better than what anyone else can offer. American culture can offer quite a bit. It can’t offer the purpose of creation dying for you. It can’t offer that sort of love. Don’t loosen your grip on Jesus to try to grab anything else with those same hands. If you do, you will wind up with less.
Jesus is the best. He is also—surprise of all surprises—the pattern of what you will become; verse 18, “he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.” Paul wasn’t saying that Jesus was the first dead who came back to life. That happened to other people in Scripture. Paul was saying that Jesus’ resurrection is a picture of what is to come. As Doug Moo puts it, “the resurrection of Christ initiates this end-time resurrection; his resurrection guarantees and, indeed, stimulates the resurrection of all who follow.” Easter morning is something of a coming attractions trailer for the future of all who follow Jesus. Life is a happy story in the end. Your life is a happy story in the end if you give the pen over to Jesus.
Jesus is so much more than we think. He is the connection point of everything. He is the connection point of God and humanity. That’s what’s going on with verse 19, “For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in him.” This is likely temple language from Psalm 68. The temple was where sinners could meet God. Jesus is where sinners can meet God. If you want to connect with God, go to Jesus. He is where God is pleased to have His fullness dwell.
Jesus brings everything back to God; verse 19, “For God was pleased to have all his 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.” Jesus came to make everything new. He didn’t come to just save souls. He came to make everything right—people, people’s relationships, laughter, justice, the division of cells inside the human body, the most distant star, the nearest heartache.
He came to make it all right which assumes that it has gone terribly wrong. Everything needs to be reconciled to God because it has been cut off from God. We need to find peace with God because we lost peace with God. That’s the story of the fall into sin. This is the story of how it is made right. The cross is the story of how it is made right; verse 20, “by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” It isn’t just people who will be singing The Old Rugged Cross in the new creation. Clouds, so to speak, will be singing it. The rivers and streams will sing it. The animals will sing it. The harmony of the planets will sing it. The cross is the means by which whatever you want to be made right will be made right if it’s meant to be made right. The death of the God-man is far more precious than the price for one or two sinful souls. It is more precious than anything and so it can make everything right. Since you are a person, you have a will and you must choose whether you want to be part of everything being made right. You do that by putting your faith in Christ. Rocks don’t have that responsibility. You do.
If you have Jesus, you have God Himself. You have everything. Now it doesn’t always seem like that, which is why we have passages like this. We have passages like this because we aren’t all that good at discerning the purpose and plan of little things let alone the purpose and plan of everything.
Nick isn’t going to discern all of this just talking down the street. He isn’t going to discern this turning life over in his mind. He must be told this good news, which is why passages like this were written. You need to be told this good news, which is why what we are doing right now occurs. You need to be told again and again that the hands that were pierced for your sins are the hands that hold everything together. Amen.